My mother's friend has died and the funeral is tomorrow. I would like to go and pay my respects but my mother does not want me to go. This friend visited my mother's house regularly and I would always chat with her. She came out for meals with us. She attended my nephew's christening. She often sent me cards and presents. My mother says I wasn't her friend and that I didn't know her and shouldn't be going to her funeral.
Your profile doesn't list dementia or cognitive/memory issues as something your Mother is dealing with. But maybe her illogical and unempathetic reaction is a sign that this may be something to check.
I would ignore your Mom. Stop arguing with her about it and just go. Don't tell her you're going, not even afterwards. If she asks where you're going tell her a "therapeutic fib". The life and memory of this devoted family friend needs to be uplifted by your presence so that her family will know what she did. Gratitude.
She has been checked by her GP recently for memory issues and got the all clear. She has had this kind of behaviour all her life.
She says she is going on her own when I offered to give her a lift there. I will just go even though I have never met her children or other family.
Don't engage with her on the topic of what you do. Just go because youpre respecting the friend and her family. It isn't about your mom.
Having a reaction like this, that you 'weren't a friend and didn't know her and shouldn't be going to her funeral' is not a normal reaction, in my opinion and experience with a mother who had dementia and all sorts of unhinged & argumentative reactions to EVERYTHING. Why should your mother care whether you go to this woman's funeral or not? And that you can drive your mom there to boot should be a blessing, yet she's acting like it's a curse. Suspicious behavior for dementia, the way I see it. Not to mention you all went out for meals together which means you obviously DID know this woman, your mother is aware of that fact, and has either forgotten it or is choosing to forget it, for some unknown reason.
Go to the funeral, take your own car, and too bad if mother has a meltdown over it *AND needs to find her own transportation there*
Best of luck.
My mother has had this reaction over other funerals. I think, in the future, I will not mention that I am going to attend the funeral of someone we both know, that is the best way to deal with it.
Thank you for your help and advice.
This is very much the reasoning of a 6 year old
Go to the funeral if you wish and get your mom in for a neuropsych assessment to find out the big picture of what is going on.
Go and pay your respects. It doesn’t matter how your mom feels about it.
Your mom’s behavior seems rather odd to me.
Usually the viewing is the night before and an hour before the funeral. I only did the hour before the funeral. So go to the viewing and sit thru the service. You don't need to go to the graveside or the luncheon if u don't feel comfortable.
Maybe, back in her early days, funerals were small affairs reserved only for the very closest of family members?
People can have strange/differing opinions about funerals. Some people dislike or fear them.. some never go to them at all.
If you want to go, I hope you do.
When her friend's husband died about 6 years ago, she did go to that funeral, though.
How is your mother going to get there on her own?
My mother, a very severe agoraphobic, could cherry pick which home exits she would accept and which she wouldn’t.
She was also self conscious about being missing when she felt social pressures that she didn’t want to respond to.
If this is currently a recent variation in your mother’s makeup, keep an eye on it.