Letters to the Editor
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Some advice
You're feeling something, and it's such a change you're having trouble dealing with it. That's good.
The boyfriend was right. $470, for what, 48 hrs? With your credit card debt? You can't afford it.
Dump the five-star resort. What's that for? To feel better than the rest of the world for a couple of days? While you're being served by other humans? You really can't afford that.
Stay home, because that's what it is even if you only inhabit it, and learn to cook. Too many people in New York, or at least the Sex In the City types, never learn to cook. If you can cook, you appreciate the restaurant food more because you eat it less, and you know something of what goes into it.
Your Grandma/Aunt, who sounds like she was a good person, would be happy for you, happier than if you'd continent-hopped for a meaningless gesture.
By the way, New Mexico is nice, too. And has a future. If you visit next summer and avoid the resort, you might not want to go back.
You asked for advice. Oh, and buy my book.
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I didn't go to my uncle's funeral.
I wasted time trying to decide and by the time I decided I should go and called for tickets I couldn't get a flight. On the day of the funeral I realized I had made a huge mistake, and was so sad and angry at myself for my ambivalence. He was a sweet man who I loved and who always treated me kindly, and his family would have appreciated the effort had I gone.
You can learn the same lesson I did from this: Always go to the funeral. It means something to people when you show up. Just go. Family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, your friends' parents--go and pay your respects. You will never regret it.
So, forgive yourself and go to the next one, and be fully present for youself, the deceased, and the other mourners. That is how you will redeem yourself.
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Always go to funerals.
cpinsd is right. Always go to the funeral.
Funerals, unlike what another poster said, are not all about death. They are a time to share rememberances and memories of the person who has died.
Showing up for the funeral of someone to whom you were tenuously related, but who had always been kind to you would have been a good thing to do. At this point, though, you can only consider it a lesson.
Living away from family is hard, but this is not the time to evaluate your living situation rationally. Give yourself some time, then start weighing the pros and cons of NM and NY. There are always trade-offs: see which ones you can best live with.
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take ownership of your own life.
You asked your sister, you asked your boyfried, and they gave you permission to punt. waa waa
Stop letting other people make critical decisions for your life. Stop neglecting your own life and passing the decisions on to someone else. It's like a little scared girl inside your brain is afraid to make choices and thinks if she passes them on to someone else, she doesn't have to be held accountable.
Girl, take respsonsibility for your own life! Stop expecting other people to do the heavy lifting and take ownership of your own life.
When you do this, you'll find you'll also stop spending lots of money on stupid wasteful things that you don't need to fill the void any more.
TAKE OWERSHIP OF YOUR OWN LIFE NOW.
put on your big girl panties and take responsibility for your own choices.
Send a card to Aunties closest relative, say how sorry you are you couldn't make it and tell her you're sending a check for $470 to Auntie's favorite charity in HER HONOR.
It is time to start being a GROWN UP.
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Rationalization
"Now you see why we have funerals. They help us get over it. ... Instead it is good to go to the funeral because then we do not have to face the terror of our ultimate nonexistence alone in our apartments.
... So think of it this way: Rather than attend the palliative event like the rest of the family, you unwittingly stuck your head out the window of the car and took in a full face of death at 70 miles an hour."
The LW's particular situation aside, this is a whopper of a rationalization for not bothering to go to a funeral. Not going is brave? So the cowards are at church dressed in black?
Funerals are about the living -- the living family members who are mourning their loss. You go to the funeral to comfort them, and yourself only secondarily. Almost 25 years later I remember people who went to a lot of trouble to come to my mother's funeral. I remember another friend who went way out of her way to show me great kindness in other ways at that time. Ever since, I have tried hard to always go to the funeral, because fairly early on in life I got a first hand understanding of how much a small gesture can mean to someone.
That said, I don't know if the LW should have gone. Perhaps her family was well represented there, and everyone understoood the distance and money issues. I agree with those who said she should write a letter to the family with fond stories of her aunt. It is never too late to do this.
For other situations, the funeral is not about you and your feelings about death, funerals, religion, whatever. It is about doing a kindness for the mourners. It is a clear demonstration to them that you care about them in a difficult time. A funeral is like a lot of rituals we have to go to in life -- we can usually think of something we'd rather do, and it seems like a big pain, until we're the one who needs it.
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That said, I don't know if the LW should have gone. Perhaps her family was well represented there, and everyone understoood the distance and money issues.
If she can afford a luxury vacation later this year, she can't use the money excuse for not going to the funeral.
If she can't afford the funeral, she can't afford the luxury vacation.