Funeral: How Not To Deliver Bad News !!!!!!!!!!!

[TeamBhakta]

BG: One of my uncles has emphysema from years of smoking. He refuses to do things the doctors suggest, like his breathing exercises. So consequently he is feeling worse as the months pass.

Last year, his son posted something on FB along the lines of "He's down to 20 %  (of something or other) now." I didn't see the post, so I don't know if the whole line was  "20 % lung capacity" or "20 % chance of survival." But all the older relatives who don't have FB heard about it from the younger relatives who saw it on FB and everyone ended up going "Oh no    *runs to phone* Auntie, is it true about your husband Ill Uncle ? Is it really 20 % now ?  " Auntie swore her son was incorrect and didn't know where he got that from.   

[hobish]

I don’t know why I didn’t post this before, except maybe it was too raw. Sometimes I wish my family had that urge to hold off on news, but they don’t. I guess I can understand, there are times I work a lot and if they always waited for me to be done work they’d barely be able to reach me. Still, finding out that your uncle/friend/cousin died when you’re sitting at work is pretty awful. The worst was from a friend, though, who I have to admit I still wonder if she was really just trying to be a drama queen. Gish says I think the worst of people, but … I don’t know, this was bad … Sabrina was a friend of my sister’s, and Drama Queen Friend knew her, too from school. One day I get a message to my work email from DQF with the header: Did you hear about Sabrina? Attached was a news article detailing how Sabrina had been about to cross the street when she was hit by a 17 year old drunk driver. She initially survived, but the driver backed up in an effort to turn the car and drive off and instead caught Sabrina again and dragged her 17 feet to her death. I have really never forgiven DQF, and I doubt I ever will. That wasn’t a matter of fumbled wording … it was an email attachment. There was forethought. I haven’t thought about that in a long time, but I still remember it like it was yesterday.


-hobish, holder of grudges
 

[violinp]

I don’t know why I didn’t post this before, except maybe it was too raw. Sometimes I wish my family had that urge to hold off on news, but they don’t. I guess I can understand, there are times I work a lot and if they always waited for me to be done work they’d barely be able to reach me. Still, finding out that your uncle/friend/cousin died when you’re sitting at work is pretty awful. The worst was from a friend, though, who I have to admit I still wonder if she was really just trying to be a drama queen. Gish says I think the worst of people, but … I don’t know, this was bad … Sabrina was a friend of my sister’s, and Drama Queen Friend knew her, too from school. One day I get a message to my work email from DQF with the header: Did you hear about Sabrina? Attached was a news article detailing how Sabrina had been about to cross the street when she was hit by a 17 year old drunk driver. She initially survived, but the driver backed up in an effort to turn the car and drive off and instead caught Sabrina again and dragged her 17 feet to her death. I have really never forgiven DQF, and I doubt I ever will. That wasn’t a matter of fumbled wording … it was an email attachment. There was forethought. I haven’t thought about that in a long time, but I still remember it like it was yesterday.


-hobish, holder of grudges
 

How awful!  Loads of hugs to you, hobish!

[ZaftigWife]

Sounds about like how I got my biopsy results.. I got a voicemail from my doc's assistant, telling me that my appointment with the oncologist was set for X date/time.. only problem was that no one had bothered to tell me that I had cancer yet.   

I went to Urgent Care about pain, nausea, and vomiting; doctor said it was probably my gallbladder and sent me for an ultrasound.  Afterwards the UC nurse called me and said she had made an appointment with a surgeon for a biopsy.  Biopsy?  For a gallbladder?  Then she started yelling at me that I had to see a surgeon NOW because I had a mass on my liver.  Nice way to give that news! 

(FTR - my gallbladder had to come out, and the mass on my liver was benign and did not require a biopsy.)

[keelhaulrose]

Hey everyone, I was gone for... a long while (as in Rosebud is no longer a bud and we've had a second bud in the family), but I've been lurking lately and came back because I have to share what my mother did when my grandfather passed recently.
Grandfather's passing was not unexpected, he had been sick and unresponsive for quite some time, and we had been told we had days, a week if were were lucky, and four days later he passed. My grandmother told my dad, who told my mother. Now, my mother and my grandfather didn't get along for a while, so she was pretty emotionless when she told me. Whatever, I can't force emotions, and at the time I was just too drained to say anything.
Since I had a ton of emotions myself at the time, and when I have too many I do something unrelated to give myself some time to step back, I went to check Facebook. Lo and behold, there was an update from my mother saying "*dad's name*'s father passed today, keep us in your thoughts and prayers" or something along those lines.
Problem is  that she was friends with a lot of my cousins. And because their parents were thinking of the best ways to break the news or taking the time to visit my grandma and postponing the news they hadn't been told. So they logged onto Facebook to see that. Luckily once I caught it I told her to take it down, and she did, but the damage had been done.

[Mental Magpie]

First, welcome back!

That is awful.  I don't know why people don't think about how others will feel hearing news like that.  I'm glad you caught it though.

[VorFemme]

Hey everyone, I was gone for... a long while (as in Rosebud is no longer a bud and we've had a second bud in the family), but I've been lurking lately and came back because I have to share what my mother did when my grandfather passed recently.
Grandfather's passing was not unexpected, he had been sick and unresponsive for quite some time, and we had been told we had days, a week if were were lucky, and four days later he passed. My grandmother told my dad, who told my mother. Now, my mother and my grandfather didn't get along for a while, so she was pretty emotionless when she told me. Whatever, I can't force emotions, and at the time I was just too drained to say anything.
Since I had a ton of emotions myself at the time, and when I have too many I do something unrelated to give myself some time to step back, I went to check Facebook. Lo and behold, there was an update from my mother saying "*dad's name*'s father passed today, keep us in your thoughts and prayers" or something along those lines.
Problem is  that she was friends with a lot of my cousins. And because their parents were thinking of the best ways to break the news or taking the time to visit my grandma and postponing the news they hadn't been told. So they logged onto Facebook to see that. Luckily once I caught it I told her to take it down, and she did, but the damage had been done.

Yeah - one of my cousins posted our grandmother's death on his FB status while my mother was still running around getting things set up to ship her body from where she died to where the funeral was to be (old family homestead where she & grandfather had retired back in 1979 and he'd passed away in 2001 - his family had been there for several generations and they are buried there together).  But I didn't get "the call" from my mother until she got home from the funeral home...........almost two hours after my daughter called me after reading HER Cousin-once-removed's FB status.............

When I had no inkling of what was going on because Mom had left her cell phone at home & only made ONE call to one of her sisters to start the notification "chain" of phone calls when she dropped by the house to pick up the outfit that Grandma was to be dressed in (she lives a mile from the nursing home).........but had too many other places to be, people to see, and things to arrange to stop & make the phone calls till after Wednesday night church services (preacher's wife & pianist). 

Not happy with Cousin but not really ticked off, either - sometimes things don't work out well on timing...............

[emwithme]

Grandfather's passing was not unexpected, he had been sick and unresponsive for quite some time, and we had been told we had days, a week if were were lucky, and four days later he passed. My grandmother told my dad, who told my mother. Now, my mother and my grandfather didn't get along for a while, so she was pretty emotionless when she told me. Whatever, I can't force emotions, and at the time I was just too drained to say anything.
Since I had a ton of emotions myself at the time, and when I have too many I do something unrelated to give myself some time to step back, I went to check Facebook. Lo and behold, there was an update from my mother saying "*dad's name*'s father passed today, keep us in your thoughts and prayers" or something along those lines.
Problem is  that she was friends with a lot of my cousins. And because their parents were thinking of the best ways to break the news or taking the time to visit my grandma and postponing the news they hadn't been told. So they logged onto Facebook to see that. Luckily once I caught it I told her to take it down, and she did, but the damage had been done.

Something similar happened to me when my (97 year old) grandmother (who brought me up after my mum died when I was a teenager) died earlier this year, but I (fortunately) hadn't logged on to facebook first thing, so I was told by my aunt over the phone rather than an (albeit very well-worded) message to my cousins and myself from another cousin. 

As for the PP who said that a funeral was held on their birthday, I must admit to being quite direct with my aunts about this.  My grandmother died a week before my birthday.  I just asked that the funeral not be on my birthday - my mother died on Mother's Day, and I *really* didn't want another special day marred by a sad occasion.  My family were very understanding and, in the event, outside events meant that the funeral was over four weeks after Gran passed.

[magicdomino]

I'm afraid my sister found out about our mother's death the hard way.  We had been told that Mother was failing, so the next day,  Sister was going to drive up from where she lived, about 4 hours away.   She mentioned that she would be stopping along the way, then would continue to come see Mother.

I got a call at 7:00 am, stating that Mother was about to pass.  I tried to call Sister, but she had already left.  This was before cell phones, and the old car phones were a rare luxury item.   Brother (who was staying with me) and I went on over to the nursing home. 

Mother passed a couple of hours later.  Brother and I hung around for an hour or so longer packing stuff and settling things, but finally we had to leave.  We were hoping Sister would stop by the house first.  No such luck; she had changed her mind and driven through, then arrived at the nursing home only a few minutes after we left, just in time to see the funeral home people wheeling out the body.   

[Cami]

Mymother and I lived 1500 miles apart. She died very unexpectedly at a young age. She had been admitted to a hospital for an ailment that is normally recoverable, which I knew. I had been in touch with the hospital several times and had confirmed that I was her emergency contact. On the second day of her hospitalization, my aunt called me at the crack of dawn to ask me when I was flying in.  "Why?" I asked. Silence, then my aunt said, "I guess they didn't tell you. When I called to check on her this morning -- expecting to talk to her like I did last night, the phone was re-routed to the nurse's station and they told me that overnight your mother became critically ill. She's now in ICU, but is not expected to  last the day." 

Total shock. I then raced around trying to get a flight, call work, deal with my young dd, etc etc -- all while dealing with the fact that I too was quite sick. In the midst of this mayhem, I called the hospital to reconfirm that I was her next of kin and I should be called about her condition and to complain that I had not been notified that she had taken a sharp and unexpected turn for the worst.

The nurse's response, "We can be on top of everything. This is your problem, not ours."

I did make it there before my mother died. After she died and we went to my aunt's house, the phone was ringing and my aunt grabbed it. It was the morgue at the hospital wanting to speak to me.

Them: "Hey. Whatcha wanna do with your mother's body? We need to know. We've called umpteen times and we need to know."

Me:  "Huh? It's 3am on Sunday morning. You need to know right now?"

Them: "Yeah. We can't just keep her dead body chilling here forever, you know."

[Mental Magpie]

Mymother and I lived 1500 miles apart. She died very unexpectedly at a young age. She had been admitted to a hospital for an ailment that is normally recoverable, which I knew. I had been in touch with the hospital several times and had confirmed that I was her emergency contact. On the second day of her hospitalization, my aunt called me at the crack of dawn to ask me when I was flying in.  "Why?" I asked. Silence, then my aunt said, "I guess they didn't tell you. When I called to check on her this morning -- expecting to talk to her like I did last night, the phone was re-routed to the nurse's station and they told me that overnight your mother became critically ill. She's now in ICU, but is not expected to  last the day." 

Total shock. I then raced around trying to get a flight, call work, deal with my young dd, etc etc -- all while dealing with the fact that I too was quite sick. In the midst of this mayhem, I called the hospital to reconfirm that I was her next of kin and I should be called about her condition and to complain that I had not been notified that she had taken a sharp and unexpected turn for the worst.

The nurse's response, "We can be on top of everything. This is your problem, not ours."

I did make it there before my mother died. After she died and we went to my aunt's house, the phone was ringing and my aunt grabbed it. It was the morgue at the hospital wanting to speak to me.

Them: "Hey. Whatcha wanna do with your mother's body? We need to know. We've called umpteen times and we need to know."

Me:  "Huh? It's 3am on Sunday morning. You need to know right now?"

Them: "Yeah. We can't just keep her dead body chilling here forever, you know."

 

 

I would be reporting both of them.  I would not have been nice to that nurse.  "So ailing patients aren't your problem?  What the *naughty words* are you doing working as a nurse?!"

As for the morgue, what the?  Who makes calls at 3am and expects them to be answered!?

I am sorry about all of this, I can't believe those people put you through more in a difficult time.

[ladycrim]

Hey everyone, I was gone for... a long while (as in Rosebud is no longer a bud and we've had a second bud in the family), but I've been lurking lately and came back because I have to share what my mother did when my grandfather passed recently.
Grandfather's passing was not unexpected, he had been sick and unresponsive for quite some time, and we had been told we had days, a week if were were lucky, and four days later he passed. My grandmother told my dad, who told my mother. Now, my mother and my grandfather didn't get along for a while, so she was pretty emotionless when she told me. Whatever, I can't force emotions, and at the time I was just too drained to say anything.
Since I had a ton of emotions myself at the time, and when I have too many I do something unrelated to give myself some time to step back, I went to check Facebook. Lo and behold, there was an update from my mother saying "*dad's name*'s father passed today, keep us in your thoughts and prayers" or something along those lines.
Problem is  that she was friends with a lot of my cousins. And because their parents were thinking of the best ways to break the news or taking the time to visit my grandma and postponing the news they hadn't been told. So they logged onto Facebook to see that. Luckily once I caught it I told her to take it down, and she did, but the damage had been done.

I found out that my cousin's other grandfather died when I read it on FB.  I called my mother to find out why she didn't tell me, only to learn it was news to her too.

I used that as an object lesson when my grandmother passed away last month, and swore I wouldn't post it to FB until the family had all been told.  My hand was slightly forced the next day, though, when another relative posted a condolence on my wall and accidentially put that my mother had died instead of my grandmother.  I had to post fast so I wouldn't get panicked questions!

[violinp]

Mymother and I lived 1500 miles apart. She died very unexpectedly at a young age. She had been admitted to a hospital for an ailment that is normally recoverable, which I knew. I had been in touch with the hospital several times and had confirmed that I was her emergency contact. On the second day of her hospitalization, my aunt called me at the crack of dawn to ask me when I was flying in.  "Why?" I asked. Silence, then my aunt said, "I guess they didn't tell you. When I called to check on her this morning -- expecting to talk to her like I did last night, the phone was re-routed to the nurse's station and they told me that overnight your mother became critically ill. She's now in ICU, but is not expected to  last the day." 

Total shock. I then raced around trying to get a flight, call work, deal with my young dd, etc etc -- all while dealing with the fact that I too was quite sick. In the midst of this mayhem, I called the hospital to reconfirm that I was her next of kin and I should be called about her condition and to complain that I had not been notified that she had taken a sharp and unexpected turn for the worst.

The nurse's response, "We can be on top of everything. This is your problem, not ours."

I did make it there before my mother died. After she died and we went to my aunt's house, the phone was ringing and my aunt grabbed it. It was the morgue at the hospital wanting to speak to me.

Them: "Hey. Whatcha wanna do with your mother's body? We need to know. We've called umpteen times and we need to know."

Me:  "Huh? It's 3am on Sunday morning. You need to know right now?"

Them: "Yeah. We can't just keep her dead body chilling here forever, you know."

 

 

I would be reporting both of them.  I would not have been nice to that nurse.  "So ailing patients aren't your problem?  What the *naughty words* are you doing working as a nurse?!"

As for the morgue, what the?  Who makes calls at 3am and expects them to be answered!?

I am sorry about all of this, I can't believe those people put you through more in a difficult time.

POD! How awful for you CamiCar!

[JadeAngel]

When my grandmother died the family had her cremated. At the time no-one felt up to dealing with the ashes (her passing was rather sudden)and the crematorium assured us that there was an extended 'grace period' during which they would store the ashes until the family was ready to collect them. I wasn't in on all arrangements for her memorial, but somehow we all received the impression that the grace period was six months.

Except apparently not, because one day about two and a half months later, my grandfather was pottering around his home when there was a ring on the doorbell and he opened the front door to have a courier thrust a box containing his wife's ashes into his hand with a curt 'Delivery. Sign here'

My grandfather had been doing quite well up until that point, but being confronted like this with the ashes of his late wife distressed him considerably. I should note that we spoke to the crematorium and they were most apologetic, but that does not change the fact that my grandmothers ashes were transported by motorcycle courier and presented without any warning to her grieving widower, which should definitely not have happened.

[Groundsgirl]

I was the deliverer of bad news once and there is probably a story being passed around my distant relatives about the time when Soandso died and his granddaughter was rude about it.

In my defense I was sound asleep when the person called and asked about my grandfather.

When I was 18, my beloved grandfather was dying of lung cancer. He was at my mothers house under hospice care when the end finally came (peacefully and gentle as my mother, my grandmother, and I sat holding his hands and singing to him). The rest of the family had dispersed to go handle whatever needed to be handled to arrange the funeral and the contacting of relatives and so on.

I was home alone and exhausted mentally and physically. I took a nap and was woken by a phone call from a distant relative. She asked me how he was doing. I answered, "Fine, I guess. He is dead now." and hung up the phone.

Looking back on that makes me squirm a little.