The Nice People Thread, No.16: A Universe of Niceness.

chris_m

I think my diet over the next few months needs to include more fruit.

I've just been having a sort out in my big freezer, mainly to decant stuff from bags that fall all over the place into boxes that stack neatly, and found that I've still got over 6Kg of raspberries and 1.5Kg of strawberries that need to be used before the plants start producing this year's crops.

It's good job I like raspberries and strawberries - pies and crumbles, here I come

silvercar

We had a lot more snow last night. Now it is starting to melt. Enough already!

OH has flown off to the cold USA for work meetings Mon and Tues. Due to land home Weds morning. In the meantime, in-laws phone to say uncle (actually uncle in law as married to MIL's now deceased sister) has been taken into hospital). He is 90 next month, already with a number of ailments and worsening dementia. If the worst happens, should I tell OH?

GDB2222

silvercar wrote: »

We had a lot more snow last night. Now it is starting to melt. Enough already!

OH has flown off to the cold USA for work meetings Mon and Tues. Due to land home Weds morning. In the meantime, in-laws phone to say uncle (actually uncle in law as married to MIL's now deceased sister) has been taken into hospital). He is 90 next month, already with a number of ailments and worsening dementia. If the worst happens, should I tell OH?

Yes. Otherwise, when he hears nothing from you, he will always worry about what you might be holding back.

Is he / are you particularly fond of the uncle?

silvercar

GDB2222 wrote: »

Yes. Otherwise, when he hears nothing from you, he will always worry about what you might be holding back.

Is he / are you particularly fond of the uncle?

He is fond of the uncle as they lived close by when OH was growing up and uncle has 2 children (OH's first cousins), one of which is the same school year as OH.

OH will be very philosophical if the uncle goes. The uncle's sister passed away last week and OH was saying no complaints having had a good life and reaching 93.

If I tell OH, I wonder if he feels he should rush back for the funeral, which would be a logistic nightmare as the funeral will be in Manchester.

GDB2222

silvercar wrote: »

He is fond of the uncle as they lived close by when OH was growing up and uncle has 2 children (OH's first cousins), one of which is the same school year as OH.

OH will be very philosophical if the uncle goes. The uncle's sister passed away last week and OH was saying no complaints having had a good life and reaching 93.

If I tell OH, I wonder if he feels he should rush back for the funeral, which would be a logistic nightmare as the funeral will be in Manchester.

A few points:

Surely, whether he rushes back for the funeral ought to be his decision?

The relatives will understand if he is thousands of miles away and cannot make it, but they might be upset if they do not hear from your OH at all.

If the relatives found out that the reason he did not attend or contact them is because you deliberately withheld the news, could that cause problems?

Even if he can't make the funeral, he could fly direct to Manchester for the shivah. That would save him a couple of hundred miles of driving at the end of a long flight.

michaels

We had about 3-4cm yesterday afternoon/evening which is pretty much all we had from the whole spell so today we went mud-sledging, like normal sledging but done on slushy mud and grass.

PasturesNew

silvercar wrote: »

If the worst happens, should I tell

No. It's not "that close/blood" and there's no benefit to him knowing. Better to know here when he's available to think about it etc. Being distant, any/all thoughts would be without him able to "do anything".

Unless, of course, religion provides some formal structure to these things I am unaware of that make a "yes" decision more usual.

I told my sibling that if they were away on holidays when our parents died I'd wait until they got home to tell them.... so as to not "spoil their holiday" as their heads would have been full of things they wanted to know/do, questions, queries etc and so it's better, for some situations, to leave it untold.

Only you really know though.

Pyxis

silvercar wrote: »

We had a lot more snow last night. Now it is starting to melt. Enough already!

OH has flown off to the cold USA for work meetings Mon and Tues. Due to land home Weds morning. In the meantime, in-laws phone to say uncle (actually uncle in law as married to MIL's now deceased sister) has been taken into hospital). He is 90 next month, already with a number of ailments and worsening dementia. If the worst happens, should I tell OH?

I agree with GDB, you should tell him, and for all the reasons he said.

Any decision has to be his.

Look at it this way; how would you feel if he kept something similar from you? :A

Is the funeral likely to be before Wednesday? I mean, the poor man isn't actually dead yet, after all.
So, no need to rush back, as such.

GDB2222

Pyxis wrote: »

I agree with GDB, you should tell him, and for all the reasons he said.

Any decision has to be his.

Look at it this way; how would you feel if he kept something similar from you? :A

Is the funeral likely to be before Wednesday? I mean, the poor man isn't actually dead yet, after all.
So, no need to rush back, as such.

Well, the funeral won't take place unless the uncle dies, of course, so I agree that it's a bit early to write him off.

But, it's quite usual for the funeral to take place well under 24 hours after death. So, if the uncle dies this evening, the funeral could well be tomorrow. For a relative who is the wrong side of the Atlantic, it can be very hard to organise flights to get back in time, and if SC's OH feels he wants to be there he might want to turn round at the airport and fly straight back.

When my father died whilst I was in the USA, the airline was very good about changing the reservation for the return flight at zero notice.

Pyxis

GDB2222 wrote: »

Well, the funeral won't take place unless the uncle dies, of course, so I agree that it's a bit early to write him off.

But, it's quite usual for the funeral to take place well under 24 hours after death. For a relative who is the wrong side of the Atlantic, it can be very hard to organise flights to get back in time.

I see. Is that a religious requirement?
I've got a feeling now that it might be.