I Ought to be in Niagara Falls, NY Right Now

[Night Watchman]

Nope! My wife's uncle died last night (Monday), so I get to spend the first three days of my summer vacation in Tustin, up in Orange County. If you think I'm being callous, I dunno, maybe you're right. But she was never that close to the guy. Hell, I've never even met him!

[Skittles]

1. it's something I have never understood

people who don't really visit or call or write to someone, but drop everything to go to their funeral......it must be a family thing

[The Second Stone]

2. Maybe the living that will be there will be heartened to see your wife

As for Niagara Falls, slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch....

[mnhtnbb]

3. I'm sorry that a death in your wife's family has interfered with your vacation plans.

That is a bummer.

Wakes and funerals and memorial services are for the living. I'm at the age where they are coming more frequently. My husband is losing
friends on a regular basis. It will mean a lot to someone in your wife's family that she was there, probably her mother or father--whoever was
the sister or brother of her uncle--and it's never wrong to show kindness, love, and empathy when someone you love loses someone close
to them.

[Fla Dem]

4. In later years as families grow apart, especially extended families

both emotionally and by distance, sometimes weddings and funerals are the only thing that reconnects us to our past. For some that may not mean too much, but for others it means a lot. Seeing cousins, aunts and uncles, sometimes even sisters and brothers. A time to get caught up, reminisce, remember those who have already gone, have some laughs over the "old days" and to remind us we are part of a larger whole.

I know not every family has shared good memories of times gone by. But for those of us that do, funerals particularly for someone who has lived a good life, a long life, can be very comforting while sad.

Just my thoughts.