My Christian, old republican southerner father wants me to attend his Christian funeral with all of his surviving relatives present. I don’t believe in any god, he knows that. He needs a religion to give a meaning to his life? Knock yourself out.
Religion is not the main problem here. The main problem is how close minded and fake people are in a southern small town in GA and above all, relatives. 2 aunts love to pretend everything is fine, they excel doing that on funerals and weddings, then stab you in the back as soon as you’re not within ear distance, either need drama to feel important or have way too much free time.
I wouldn’t mind a small Christian ritual with my mother, my brother, a priest and nobody else, but these women and their husbands? They drag everyone down with their stupid grudges about yard sales and business deals made in the early 2020s and seem to be envious of those who left that place and found something better. Last time I saw them, 7 years ago, they complained I don’t call them. What for?
I’m better off without them and don’t have the bandwidth to deal with them.
Family seems to be an identity issue for my father, the idea that his whole family won’t bury him together scares him. I told them I will honor him my way, with luck on the hospital bed where he dies or at home, that mother and brother are welcome to honor him with me, that I won’t attend a funeral with people I don’t like but he is not listening: he is now retorting to manipulate me (it would be so good, wouldn’t it be nice…?)
My father is not cognitively impaired. The easy way out would be to tell him ‘sure, I’ll come to your funeral with all those assholes you care so much about’ and after he dies, ignore it. I suspect my mother would agree, because she wasn’t born in GA and these aunts always felt superior to her, something my father always downplays because ‘we’re family’.
I like treating my father like an adult and want genuine conversations with him. To me, placating him on a thing like this means accepting my father has become a 5 year old who needs to be lied to so he doesn’t start feeling sad or feels I’m attacking him. It doesn’t feel right.
But it feels worse to pretend I respect those lying assholes or to listen to their boring life I don’t care about.
So what do I do?
You go to your father’s funeral to honor your father’s memory. He isn’t going to bar his sisters from attending his funeral, that would be wildly out of the norm. When your dad dies, go to his damn funeral. This beef you have with his sisters is immaterial.
Your father expecting you to attend his funeral is pretty fucking standard. It’s a colossally large dick move to not attend your own father’s funeral just because you have a grudge against his sisters. Be a fucking adult and bear the presence of a few people you don’t like for a few hours.
+1
Funerals aren’t for the dead, they’re for the living. People should feel free to commemorate or memorialize their loved ones how they see fit. Demanding they do it your way is shitty and self centered.
Sure. But also: planning a funeral and communicating your funeral wishes is also for the living, which the father is. and respecting the deceased by honoring their wishes is also for the living, since it’s how we help solidify the norm that we respect people’s final wishes.
Yeah, how dare that fucking asshole ask his son to attend his funeral just because he cares about “family” or something. It’s like he doesn’t understand that his sisters might ask some slightly uncomfortable questions or gossip!
You’re right that funerals are for the living. They’re a place for the living to grieve, mourn and honor the deceased. Acting like it’s shitty or self centered for someone to express an opinion about their funeral or what’s important to them is honestly disgusting.
The man isn’t asking his son to deal with someone who traumatized him, or violated him in some way: he just doesn’t like the aunts. That’s like refusing to attend the funeral because you just really hate waking up early if you don’t have to.
I’m not talking about the father, I’m talking about the shitty, patronizing responses calling op childish or out of line for deciding how they want to remember their own father.
Funerals are to please the spirit of the dead so they don’t come back and spoil your crops.
It’s also an opportunity to reconcile. Not that OP seems to want that, nor would the aunts most likely want that, but sometimes such events just make things… Click.
Having okay relations with relatives is important, and afuneral is an opportunity for things to improve. That’s just pure sociology. You aunts will spin it into “God works in mysterious ways”, but it’s the same core thing with a culty religious spin.
So my take is: bite your teeth and attend the funeral. It’s a one-time investment of a few hours. Odds are the aunts won’t want to make issues. Maybe it fixes things. Your fathed did ask nicely, after all. And it’d be nice to honour his request. Any semi-okay relatives would respect that, religious or otherwise.
YMMW if they’re as fake as you say they are (religion is a hell of a drug), but if it doesn’t go the ideal way, you did your part and they failed theirs. If you don’t go, it’ll be the other way around because Christians unfortunately eork like that. And they like holding grudges. A funeral is (unfortunately) one of the few “chances” to reconcile. Shame someone needs to quite literally die for them to be this open to reconcoliation.
Speaking like an ex-christian raised in the tradition: this could be your opportunity to get things to smooth over. They’re bound be as open to reconciliation as possible. Just don’t force it. Keep your distance and honour your dad’s wishes. Forcing things will have the opposite effect of seeming disingenuous. No action other than showing up necessary.
The amount of families reconciled at christian funerals I’ve witnessed is in the low 20’s.
I agree with you but wanted to see how un-popular my take is
true, but my mother might. There is really that much animosity.
As a matter of fact, on one of my great grandfather’s funeral 2 brothers banded together to exclude a third one from the funeral. According to my father, this person had to leave the cemetery but then climbed up a tree next to the wall to watch the ceremony.
So there is already a precedent about excluding unwanted visitors from a funeral in my completely normal family 🤣
Yikes… Unless something truly terrible happened, that level of pettiness you’re describing is crazy. My family is insane on both sides, so I get things off things being normalized, but barring a close family member from attending a funeral they clearly very much wanted to witness is extreme.
One thing I learned from my own dysfunctional family is that their past behavior and decisions aren’t an excuse for me to repeat the behavior. Unless you want to carry the drama torch yourself, it’s time to take a step back and look at the big picture. How much do you want this animosity between your mom and aunts to influence your life? If you truly don’t care about them and their opinions, why are they worth you missing your own father’s funeral?
This year marks the 10 year anniversary of my adoptive mom passing away. There were many people at her funeral that I was happy to never have to see again. I don’t know the details of your situation, but try to keep in mind this is a decision you’ll only get to make once.