more drama than anyone deserves

My husband's two brothers came from the US for their grandmother's funeral which was on Monday. The brother from Denver arrived the night before but awoke early Monday morning feeling miserable. He'd been recovering from bronchitis for over a month, and was now having difficulties breathing. To make matters worse, everyone on the airplane from Germany had been handed a paper listing all the possible symptoms of the flu (and the common cold) and instructing people to contact health authorities and tell them you may have been exposed to Swineflu. I gave him some ibuprofen and called the urgent care center. They were able to fit him in, but not until 10:30. I packed my clothes for the funeral and drove him to the clinic. Miraculously, they did take him right away, and when taking a blood test, a nurse came and took him to get it done right away (instead of the usual: down the hall, around the corner, take a number, and wait at least half an hour.) They gave him some medicine which helped him breath, and we were off in only 40 minutes. Luckily, this seemed to be enough to get him through the day. I wanted to meet on the way to the funeral to save time, but my husband wasn't ready to go, so we met up at home.

My husband had estimated 90 minutes driving time, which would not have been totally unrealistic had he been the only car on the road. He also planned to arrive at exactly 1 PM when the funeral was supposed to start, leaving no buffer time. An abundance of tourists, tractors, and motor homes on the road conspired against him. Denver also needed to stop to go to the bathroom. At 1:15 we got a call from his uncle; at this point we were only a few minutes out. Surprisingly, he asked if my Mother-in-law was with us. She and her daughter had driven directly. My first reaction was one of relief: grandchildren of the deceased being late would be overshadowed by child being late.

At 1:30, still no MIL (no answer on her phones, cell phone turned off), the decision was made to start the funeral. I realized in horror that the 5 of us were the only ones there who had not brought flowers to place on the casket. We had all forgotten about that tradition! Even though all three brothers had also attended their grandfather's funeral 9 years ago, none of them remembered either. I felt as though I should have been responsible for taking care of that kind of detail (as well as seeing to it that we were not late), and I was thoroughly embarrassed. When it came to the time in the ceremony when the grandchildren and great-grandchildren were invited up to place their flowers on the casket, we went and just stood there.

I was impressed that my daugher handled herself quite well during the ceremony and didn't squirm all too much in the squeaky chairs. She was very sad and cried a lot, but she did so quietly. Thank goodness I always keep tissues in my purse.

After the ceremony, the topic of conversation was: Where's MIL? Everyone seemed to think that we should know, but we didn't. I called many times over the course of the afternoon, but there was no answer at home, and the new mobile phone we had given her a month ago remained off. We adjourned to the wake which was held at the grandparents former house (now owned by one of the aunts and her husband).

It was nice to see the cousins again, and it was really surprising to see that so many of them had babies! With 5 age 2 and under, only one of whom we knew about, it was like a full scale family baby-boom. At 7, our daughter is the oldest in her generation. The cousins closest to her age were not in attendance (2 in Boston, 2 in Tokyo), but she amused herself playing big sister to the babies.

A caterer provided two Smörgåstårtor (sandwich cakes) which are Swedish delicacies. Imagine white bread layered with tuna salad (salmon in this case), shrimp, smoked salmon and such, decorated with mayonnaise, creme fraiche, veggies, fruit, eggs, caviar, etc. It's the seafood version of a heart attach on a plate, but it sure was delicious. The other one was cheese based and nearly as good (though a bit heavier). I was so engrossed with enjoying these that it didn't even occur to me to take a picture. I ate so much of these that I didn't have room when they served real cake and spettekaga (a local specialty that has always been a part of family gatherings, it's a meringue-like creation slow cooked over a spit that looks like a 2-foot tower of crunchy funnel-cake).

I called MIL and checked my phone regularly, getting increasingly worried about MIL. What would cause her to miss her own mother's funeral? Had she been stung by a wasp and had to go to the ER? Car accident? Was the daughter having an MS episode? Why hadn't she called anyone? Around 5 PM the Aunt finally got a call from MIL: they did not make the funeral because the daughter wasn't feeling up to it. They'd driven half way, then turned back. (It's only an hour drive for them.) This didn't make much sense, but at least we knew she wasn't dead.

A couple hours later, when we were on our way home, I finally got a call from MIL. As has regularly been the case for the past couple of months, she didn't want to talk to me and asked to speak with her sons. She told them that they did not attend because her foot hurt too much. This didn't make any sense either, nor did it explain why she waited four hours to call anyone and another two hours to call us (with a different explanation). We would eventually find out that because MIL's foot hurt, her daughter had been driving and thus making the decisions. Apparently the daughter had come all the way from Los Angeles, but at the last minute could not bring herself to attend the funeral because that would involve contact with her brothers whom she had actively shunned for the past several years. This drama would continue for the duration of the brothers' visits.

So for the brothers, two of whom had made considerable effort (and spent a whole lot of money) to come all the way from the US to support their mother/family, this was a slap in the face and an embarrassment in front of the rest of the extended family.