Have you ever not attended the funeral of someone you loved dearly?

I just got word this afternoon that my favorite aunt died after a long bout with cancer. I had visited her earlier this year and put her on a regime that was shrinking her tumors naturally…and she was doing really well. I spent about four months with her and my family before coming home.

When I got back to the UK, she took a turn for the worse….mostly because some of my relatives insisted that she do chemo, when she wanted to rely on natural remedies. As soon as she started chemo, she went downhill. It was very sad and upsetting. At the end, she was pumped up with morphine and in and out of consciousness.
.
I am gutted. I have been crying all afternoon. This woman was like my second mother. She never married and had children, but she took care of all her siblings children (me included.) She was in her late 80’s.

I don’t want to go to her funeral. She won’t be at the funeral anyway…as she is wherever I am or I am wherever she is now.

I know that my relatives will think I am being rude and nothing could be further from the truth. I love her so much, but I just want to grieve and pay respects to her on my own and funerals are so political in my family. I can see the vultures circling her house already. Everyone will be there only to see who else went, who sent flowers and who was absent and the gossip-mongers are always ready to go in my old hometown.

I am heart-broken, believe me. That’s not it. Before I left, she insisted on taking out her boxes of vintage costume jewelry from the 1940’s. We spent hours poring though things as she told stories and telling me to: “Take what you want….no one else will appreciate this stuff..and after I’m gone, people will just toss it in the trash.” Even as I write this..I’m emotional..as she must have known it would be our last meeting.

I just want to remember her laughing and sharing and just being goofy with me. I feel I don’t need to go to the funeral to “pay my last respects” because she isn’t there in that box. She is in my heart.

Have you ever decided not to attend the funeral of someone you loved very much? What made you do it? What did you do instead?