O/T Lack of Communication Rant

My younger Brother's Father in Law passed away on early Sunday morning. My brother told my sister to notify all our siblings. We didn't hear any more. So this evening about 7:10 I text my sister and asked if she had heard any funeral arrangements. She said yes it's tonight, her and her husband were headed to the funeral home as she was texting me.

When I found this out I was shocked. No one had contacted us. My wife and I were not able to make it this evening to the funeral home since it was over an hour away and only 45 minutes left for tonight's visitation. Tomorrow is the funeral and we still won't be able to get off work and attend. I'm mad that no one contacted us yet feel ashamed that we can't attend.

My mom and dad knew yesterday but my mom's mind isn't all there any more and I guess dad never thought to call us.

Any way that's my rant.
Thanks for listening and letting me blow off some steam.

me and dad wernt close but the amish knew he kicked the bucket before i did and i wasnt invited to my moms familys are so much fun

Had an Aunt pass away last year. I had been working out of town at the time and didn"t find out about it until the last second and wasn"t able to attend any of the services either. She was one of the kindest, sweetest people you'd ever want to meet. Out of all my relatives she was the only one that you knew every year you'd get a personal card from at the Holidays and your birthday. Anyway, between working out of town, and the late notification, what else was I supposed to do as there was no way I could get back in town for everything? Even with the circumstances I feel really bad about not being able to be there, but what else could I do?

Too, I've had two really good friends/customers pass in the last couple of years. In one case I had stopped in quite a few times to see the old guy and he was never at home. The lights were always on, the vehicles/tractors were always in different places, etc, so I figured he was simply spending more of his evenings at his kids house, like he had been doing since his wife had passed several years prior. It was nearly a year before I was talking to another guy and found out that he had passed away. The other guy I went past the church and saw all of the vehicles and the thought passed through my mind that with that turnout it had to be him, but I hadn"t received a call even though I had talked to his son a week or so before and asked him to make sure I was on the list as I really wanted to be there.

Ultimately I guess when someone passes the family has so much going on that expecting them to remember, or to even think, to call the amount of people that want to know is really asking way too much. As such, personally, I feel bad for not being there to show my sympathy, share in remembering the life of the deceased, etc, etc, but I do understand when "someone" gets overlooked in all the craziness of the situation.

I check the local funerals by internet every day. Found out about Marilyn's late brother's wife's dad passing by reading it on the net. Never did get a call from family. We are close to the sister-in-law and knew her dad pretty well so I was thankful I read about it. The grapevine in Marilyn's family is usually pretty dependable and quick but it failed us this time. Jim

My sister sent out an email that her husband was in the hospital with an infection. It sounded like it could go either way.

When my daughter came home a few months later, she fixed my email account and I had over 300 unread messages on that account. I mentioned it to my sister and she said that she had wondered why I had not responded to her email.
OOps

I did get in contact with my sister in law this evening and she said everything was fine and not to worry about not making it to the funeral home. I was relieved after she contacted me.

Posts like this make me so glad we have a family that values communication. when someone passes away, we usually get 4 or 5 calls from different family members making sure that all information gets through. when Dad passed away last month, I only had to make about three calls myself. Then the Family took over and got it out to everyone.

When my wife died, I called my sister and gave her a list of people to call. She lives near the area where we grew up and has contact with many that I know but seldom see anymore. My daughter called a number of people and I called several relatives and asked them to pass it on. Pre-planning such as this can be a big help and prevent confusion and hurt feelings.

John, if I were you, I would verbally jump on my sister with both feet and let her know in no uncertain terms just how inconsiderate she was. She had been given the responsibility of notifying everyone, and yet she didn't care enough about you, her own brother, to keep you informed.


If MY sister did that, I'd be highly pizzed off and would let her know EXACTLY how I feel about it.

Yup. Who needs enemies, when you have "family".....

Hmm. You knew there would be a funeral sometime this week. It seems to me that should have been all the notice you needed. In this day and age, every funeral home posts funeral notices on their web page; assuming the funeral was in a small city with only one or two funeral homes all you had to do was look.

We had kind of the same thing with one of my brothers when Dad passed away. The nursing home called me when he passed. My wife went to tell my mother and my older sister. I called my younger brother. When the wife got back here she called my oldest brother and my youngest sisters husband. The sister and my next older brother worked at the same auto parts store,so the brother in law said he'd go tell them. Trouble was,it was the brothers day off and nobody remembered that. So the younger sister found out but the brother didn't. A neighbor stopped in and said something to him about it. He was not happy with the communication problem to say the least.

It was kind of the same with a cousin of my Dad when Uncle Earl died. We were all in the coffee shop talking about the visitation and Leonard was there. I thought he was still there when we were talking about it,but he showed up at the tail end of visitation that night a little irate and said he didn't know anything about it.

So I wonder how often you visited him while alive ?

I have always wondered why so many make a BIG deal about going to funerals when they never took the time to visit them while they were alive.

Maybe you are like my brother he comes by every couple/three weeks for a short visit with my 90 year old mom while my wife and I spend at least 2-3 hrs a day helping her and we are constantly on call with her moniter. If he's expecting a call from me to let him know anything he'll be waiting quite a spell guess he'll find out in a couple weeks when he comes by.

As someone that's had to make funeral arrangements for a couple of family members I know that your SIL and your brother had a lot on their minds. They did their part asking your sis to tell you about the death. It was up to you to find out when the services were if you wanted to attend.
I would think the first thing you should have done once you heard about the death would have been to call or visit your SIL.

Had need to let the family know of an event. Asked my nephew to call a couple of the cousins. Saw him at the church and asked if he called the two cousins, he said all he got was an answer machine so he "TEXTED" them. Why didn't he just leave a message on the machine? Didn't he realize that land lines don't receive texts? And this is the generation that is so electronically savy and knows everything cause they can look it up on their cell phones.
Sorry, my mini rant.

I don't think that it is just families. I have found out about services for long time friends after the fact too. There are two things that I think come into play to a degree. First is that many people just don't want to talk about it. Second, I have gotten the impression that a lot of people ask to have them put in the Sunday paper for better exposure. I don't get the Sunday paper because I am in church half the day and don' have time to read one on Sundays. I think I will start checking on line like Fixxerupper does.

We have our email set up so whenever the two local funeral homes have a new obituary it pops up. Since there are so few daily newspapers anymore we quite often know about a death before their next door neighbors do. Another wonderful modern web feature is Caring Bridge, you can follow a friends illness without bothering the family, and when you do you know what is going on.

I hear you. The year after my mother moved in with my oldest brother and his wife,the only notification anybody got about the family Christmas was a post on fazebook. Real nice for anybody who doesn't use it.

Matthew 8:22