civilservant

It must be in the air. My Gran passed away this morning back home too.

lizzyq

Sorry to hear your news too CS.

lansbury

Condolences, I think family members passing is one of the main heartaches to expat life.

materialcontroller

​​​​​​Sorry about your gran. Condolences to you and your family, civilservant.

Guindalf

Condolences, Luke.

Thank you for all the kind comments, everyone. It's very much appreciated.

I like Bevs' idea of holding a memorial of my own at the time, so long as I can find out when it is. I've had nothing apart from that original Facebook message so far. I't going to cost in the region of $5000 to go back (bereavement flights run close to $4k plus car hire, hotels, food, etc, Oh, and maybe a new suit, too!). I also only get three days for bereavement leave and just got back from vacation a couple of weeks ago, so I could possibly even lose my job if I try to take too much time off.

My sister has been the center of problems in the family for the last five years or so and, unfortunately, Mum 'refused to interfere', but managed to side with her. My last conversation with Mum was in early February and ended up with me hanging up on her - I haven't spoken to my sister in over five years and it doesn't look like friendly chat is on the card any time soon!

I'm happy she's no longer in pain, but I refuse to pay out the above with the thought of spending all my time not at the funeral sitting in a hotel room, waiting for the time to fly home again.

Rete

My sincere condolences, CS. I hope that your memories of her will bring you comfort.

BEVS

The air needs to change itself. I'm sorry to read that CivilServant.

For the MIL, I found out by doing a bit of stalking - call it investigative - around TBH. Once I felt I had the funeral director , I had husband phone them .

There may be local paper notices . You may have a cousin or the like you could ask .

To this day he doesn't exactly know what the service was at all. We did send flowers though for that day direct to the Funeral Directors so husband was there in his own way and we help our own memorial right at the day and time - which being in NZ did mean late night.

scrubbedexpat097

Sorry to hear that.

civilservant

Thanks all. Guindalf I agree about the expense, one of the hardest things that I knew when moving here is that I would probably never see her again because of that - and she was for all intents and purposes the one who raised me the most. I found myself thinking of times when we laughed or cried or whatever together that I hadn't though about in 15 years or more.

If you have good memories, those are the ones to hold on too. Don't let anyone else bring you down right now.

Lion in Winter

Very sorry to hear your news.

My mother also died suddenly and unexpectedly, so I have a bit of an idea how it feels. If you want to go back for the funeral, do so. You don't have to participate in family events if you don't want to. Or if you would rather not, that's ok too.

Lion in Winter

And condolences to you as well.

Guindalf

I agree. I'm the only one that matters in this situation.

I did get another Facebook communication from my brother-in-law today. He told me that they were informed on Sunday that the funeral MAY be Wednesday afternoon, but due to Jewish holidays, they won't know for sure until tomorrow! There's no way I could arrange top be there if I tried, so it kinda makes up my mind for me.

I'm hoping I can get the copies of the forms I need in order to get paid for my bereavement leave, but I'm doubting that will even happen. As for any inheritance, my sister was named executrix a long time ago (Mum asked me and, at the time, I had no reason to object), so I'm not holding my breath and frankly, don't care.

Guindalf

Facebook strikes again, this time at around 6:30 this morning, telling me that the funeral is taking place at 15:00 (UK), so 10:00AM!

For anyone needing help with the math, that's 3.5 hours notice, so it would have been totally impossible to attend if I wanted to.

Nutmegger

So the decision was made for you. Forget about the rest of the family now and concentrate your thoughts on happy memories of your mother, saying goodbye in your own way.

Muna_93

My condolences, Guindalf. I hope you find some way of honouring her memory that's both meaningful to you and free of all this stress.