Would really like GN’s thoughts on this, I cannot figure this out. I had lived next door to my neighbour for 30 years. She was elderly, about 75 and died late last year, and her husband of 34 years died in late 2019 of a heart attack. She has one son by her first husband and the husband has a son by his first wife. She had always been prickly although I got on well with the husband and was on friendly terms with her son.
The couple both had a good relationship with her own son, but she had deliberately ostracised her step-son and they had had no contact with him for years. Anyway, I am really puzzled by the nature of the husband’s funeral. She did not let the neighbours know that he had died, he was suddenly absent.
Recently I have got to know further details of the funeral. Her own son was deliberately not told about the death, nor invited to the funeral. She told her husband’s family about his death but only 3 days before the funeral was to take place, in an attempt to keep them away. It was a very modest funeral, only the wife there, and the husband’s family had managed to get there, so about 8 people in total. Neighbours were not invited and no friends were present even though he was very sociable. The short ‘service’ was led by a crem staff member, there was a reading and a piece of music, with no hymns/eulogy/order of service booklet/flowers or charity donations. The wife was driven to the crem by the husband’s relative, so no limousine, and she wore inappropriate clothing, something casual. Afterwards the wife was driven home again and she just bid goodbye to the relative, no wake or refreshments provided for anyone. There was no memorial in garden of remembrance or anything similar.
They certainly had the money to afford a grander ceremony and I do believe they loved each other. She had not fallen out with her son so he could have been invited. Apparently the husband had not requested a minimal funeral without guests, it was her decision. Why would anyone organise that kind of funeral? Shock? Depression?
