Reply to SIL and dad’s funeral

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "SIL and dad’s funeral"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I lost my father earlier this year.  I’m very sorry.

I will say from acute experience - until you’ve lost a parent, it’s really very easy to just give a pro forma response.   (Even after that it’s easy to do).  I was guilty of it myself.

I have a lot of close friends who didn’t do anything beyond a text or something.   The friends who continued to check in, or send something, had lost a parent themselves.

If your SIL hasn’t lost a parent, don’t expect much of her and don’t hold it against her once your grief gets more manageable.  No need to do anything now though.

Now, if she did lose a parent and you went above and beyond, make note, move on and don’t go out of your way in the future (I have one friend who was like that, her lack of any meaningful check in didn’t surprise me, though because it was very on brand. [/quote]

This is very similar to my experience. Often those who have lost a parent get it and those who haven't don't. The people who cared for me best when I was grieving were not those I was closest to - it was the ones who had experienced it too. I don't care if it's "the natural order" or "not a child or spouse" like another posted mentioned. In the time of grief making these kinds of comparisons isn't helpful. For a few months after my mom died I was still crying multiple times a day, grief journaling, going through pictures and also spending a lot of time supporting my dad and helping him adjust. From the outside it may have just looked like I was moving on and fine and there wasn't anything to be done to help, but internally it was still a lot to work through. I'm not sure many people on our culture understand that until they have personally lost someone. Has your SIL lost a parent?

Also, people love to hate on people like me whose love language is gifts/acts of service. Picking out a card and taking the time to mail it means 10x more to me than a text. I love physical representations of care. I love to go back and look at them later on. A text just isn't the same for me. I recognize that others feel very differently, and there are plenty of people in my life that I don't bother with cards and gifts because I know they just don't care and would rather have me text often to check in. That's great for them. But hopefully those closest to me know how I like to be shown care and will make a bit of an effort during hard times. Showing up at the service and being present do mean a lot. Did you communicate to SIL the service details directly? Did she respond? [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics