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My mom has been in hospice for a few months now. She is nearing the end. 6 months ago my wife and I purchased a very expensive vacation, leaving February 28th. It has a pricey cancellation fee as well.
Say my mom passes late next week, am I a monster to ask to delay the funeral a week until I return?
I have been very involved the last few months and will be paying a large percentage of the cost.
This is the type of question only you can answer. Individual circumstances vary so much, relationships between offspring and parents vary so much, that there is no sensible answer.
You need to imagine yourself three or more years in the future looking back, and from that vantage point determine what you are most comfortable looking back on as your course of action.
To help you decide, write down the lists of pros and cons for each course of action. Examine them side by side, discuss it with your wife.
I think that it is possible to buy vacation insurance. Does that help?
My mom has been in hospice for a few months now. She is nearing the end. 6 months ago my wife and I purchased a very expensive vacation, leaving February 28th. It has a pricey cancellation fee as well.
Say my mom passes late next week, am I a monster to ask to delay the funeral a week until I return?
I have been very involved the last few months and will be paying a large percentage of the cost.
I am a nervous wreck over this, any input?
If you're mother has been in hospice a few months now, why did you purchase this vacation 6 months ago?
You had to know there were serious health issues, didn't that cross your mind 6 months ago?
I don't know what kind of relationship you have with your mother or if she was a great mom, or the mother from hell.
I know when my mother passed(and also in hospice) it was surreal and I was barely functioning, and the last thing I would want to take would be any vacation anytime in the near future, because I wouldn't have been up to it nor would I have enjoyed it.
Can you pay a penalty and postpone it? Next time buy travel insurance when you know that you have a situation like this going on that could impact a trip.
Only you know the answer, I will just say if you had any type of halfway decent relationship with your mom, it's doubtful you will enjoy yourself, do you want to find yourself on a plane(just an example) and find you're sobbing and can't get it under control?
Look into postponing and make it clear what the reason is, you may be able to get buy just paying a penalty and everyone has a mother, perhaps someone in charge and cut you some slack.
When my MIL passed we were 1500 miles away (snowbirds). DH was a non-flier so we did not go to the funeral (she was a widow, with two other kids). We caught a lot of grief for it.
A year or two later, speaking with a Canadian snowbird friend in the south, he mentioned his dad had passed. I asked, are you flying back for the funeral? He said, no, they are going to delay it til we get back. I thought, so that's how it's done in a caring family.
So yes, it can be done. Is there anyone else that would be inconvenienced by delaying it (siblings)? More importantly, is there anyone else who will be with her when she passes?
"Monster" is a strong word; maybe there's a more appropriate one. But my question is: why was the vacation was planned around this time, and not some other point in the future? If your mom is "nearing the end", it seems a bit insensitive to be running off on vacation. If you had held off on your vacation, there would be no issues with cancellation fees and delaying the funeral.
Even if your mom was okay during the planning, obviously things can and do change. Your choices after the "change" reveal to all what's most important to you inside. Life and death are on a much bigger scale of change than vacations and money and stuff. We shouldn't even have to point that out.
I can understand the financial part, and loss of money, but money is usually not important when compared to family (at least that's the priority where I come from). It might come across as selfish and self-absorbed, and that's hard to recover from in a family environment. That knocks down a person on the human ladder many rungs, but maybe you don't care about any of that. Even though I rarely go on vacation and am dirt-poor these days (and would be hit hard by a huge cancellation fee loss), I know I still couldn't do that.
On the positive side, you are seeking feedback and opinion.
Last edited by Thoreau424; 02-14-2018 at 08:54 AM..
What you decide to do is up to you and your relatives. Funerals can be delayed for a number of reasons and you just have to decide whether it's something you need to do in this situation.
I will say that I think it would be difficult for me to enjoy a vacation knowing that I would be attending my mother's funeral as soon as I got back. But again, that's something for you and the other people involved to decide.
I don't think you're a monster at all. Caring for a loved one, even in hospice, is incredibly stressful and draining. Countless studies show how stressful and harmful to your own health being a caretaker can be. I can certainly understand why you would NEED a vacation. I see nothing wrong with postponing the funeral. Funerals are postponed for a lot of reasons. Dead is dead.
What are you going to do for her at that point? It isn't like your mother will know. What is important, is all the time you've been spending with her and the support you've been giving her through her illness. Before going on vacation, I would certainly make sure all arrangements are in order. There's no reason that cannot be done now. When my grandmother was dying of cancer, she took care of the funeral herself!!! Right down to her obituary and the songs she wanted to be sung at her service. She also paid for it. She was salt of the earth and didn't want to be a burden to anyone. It bothered us and we thought it morbid at the time, but when she died, we were so thankful. There was literally nothing for us to do. She made some choices for the service we would not have, and quite a few people asked about it. We told them we had nothing to do with it, that those were her wishes and her arrangements. But anyway, getting it all done in advance will relieve a lot of stress should she pass while you are on vacation, or about to leave.
Also, despite the cancellation fee, it may be that in the event of death of an immediate family member, the vacation can at least be postponed without penalty. It's worth asking.
The future is obviously passed and gone. Six months ago is but a side note to history. All sorts of things can change in 6 months. There are no guarantees about anything.
The present is the most important, real, and relevant. Right now, in the present, you have to deal with the situation as it is at the moment. Will you ignore the uncontrollable path that your mom has been put on, and forge ahead with your (controllable) vacation plans? Is your vacation time of greater importance to the potential last days of your mom's life and time on earth? How would she feel slipping away with you being miles away by choice? Or does none of that matter?
Maybe you're way too busy with day-to-day things, and haven't stopped to look at the deeper matters of life. This might be an opportunity to grow in some new, deep, and significant ways. This all might even be a test on some level, to see where your priorities and allegiances reside. What about years from now when the situation is reversed, and you're on your death bed? How would you see it then? We come into the world without anything material, and leave the same. Vacations and money won't mean squat in the end. But how we deal with others while we're here is timeless.
Last edited by Thoreau424; 02-14-2018 at 09:52 AM..
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