Read the OP. She barely sees her family. This is all about her. Couldn’t even be bothered to go to the funeral. |
My little cousin died in my home country when I was 10. She was only 3 years old. They do the funeral pretty much immediately there (within 24 hours) so we couldn't be there. It's awful to experience a loss like that from long distance when you can't grieve in community. It was really confusing and I remember my mom was really upset. I don't think she knew what to do or say.
It's a really horrible thing to happen and of course OP has complicated feelings. |
No matter what, when a child dies, there's a lot of "othering" of the parents. Here, it's how dare the mother allow the child to participate in extreme sports. There's always a way of making the parents "other" to conclude mentally that it couldn't happen to you.
The othering is the denial stage of grief. |
Why don’t you reread the OP? She has a legitimate reason for not attending the funeral. She couldn’t physically be there in time. |
This X1000. It’s likely that the sport isn’t even that extreme. |
Does it matter though? What is apparent is that a child has died in an accident. Not from abuse or neglect. OP and her family are understandably upset, and finding someone to blame is a pretty common reaction, but they need to stop blaming the mother, who has already suffered the worst consequence imaginable (and already knows her family blames her). |
OP, your sister is going through the absolute worst thing a human being can endure. I usually lurk but felt compelled to respond to this post after witnessing what my own brother's premature and preventable death did to my parents, who will never be the same. My brother should be turning 37 today, May 1, but he lost his life tragically and through no fault of my parents. I won't go into details because this isn't about us, but my parents were good parents, not perfect, but who is? But children can and do make their own decisions, in your case both the child who tragically passed as well as the one who uttered the racist word. Your sister and her parenting did not cause either occurrence.
The pain your sister is feeling is unbearable and will never leave her. Have some compassion and think about how you would feel in her situation. The racist slur was the horrible mistake of her child, and the apology was not your sister's responsibility to control. Kids make mistakes, sometimes horrible ones. Do you even know that child is racist? Maybe they truly didn't understand the implication of the word they chose. As a classroom teacher, I've seen this often, and usually these children are just repeating words they've heard and are good people who made bad choices and can learn from them. My brother was a good person who made some bad choices and paid the ultimate price. My parents were good parents who did the best they could, but parents do not control their children's choices or lives. Many people knew of my brother's struggles, but when he died, which was our greatest fear realized, if anyone who attended his funeral said he should have known what would happen, I would have rapidly shown them the door and never spoken to them again. Your nephew's life was lost, your sister lost a child, your sister's other children lost the chance to grow old with their sibling and everything that could entail. It's not the time or the place to cast judgment on how a person chose to live their own life or how a person parented. People die every day of conditions they themselves played a role in if not directly caused- obesity, reckless driving, drinking, drugs, any extreme sports- but who are we to judge them? And how can we judge their parents for the choices made by their children? Do you live your life perfectly? Parent your children perfectly? And are your children perfect? Hopefully you will never have to experience the unimaginable grief your sister lives with every day, but please try to be there for her for the absolute worst time of her life and shut down the judgment from yourself and others. |