Poll of the Day > my cousin OD'ed last week, and the viewing is this weekend

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let me just say that my clearest memory of the fucker was when i was 8 and 11 years old (this happened twice) and he stole the christmas money my grand mother had sent to all of her grand kids, and used it to buy heroin

now my folks are pretty pissed at my brother and I, as we both have no desire to go to the service, and we both have been pretty unphazed by the whole thing. i didnt really know the guy, and my few experiences with him were not positive. kid grew up in the upper middle class and had a ton of advantages that he pissed away, and somehow i am supposed to feel bad that this little puke chose the wrong path and it unsurprisingly led to his death?

family is fucking stupid potd. cherish the relationships that you form by choice.


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damn. sorry. I have one dead cousin from cancer. though like you I barely knew her. and hadn't seen her in years when she died

All I'll say is that funerals are for the living.

Maybe this guy was a dirtbag and you couldn't care less that he died, but maybe someone in your family is taking the loss hard and you never know how much your presence and condolences could mean to them.

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You should be concerned for the feelings of your family and not yours regarding the guy but that would require a modicum of empathy.
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Far-Queue posted...

All I'll say is that funerals are for the living.

Maybe this guy was a dirtbag and you couldn't care less that he died, but maybe someone in your family is taking the loss hard and you never know how much your presence and condolences could mean to them.

that would be one person: my aunt. my wife and i have spent 5 of the past 6 nights at her house doing our best to comfort her. she is understandably an inconsolable mess (she was the one who found him). I am there for her. I guess i just dont understand how his funeral service is for her, especially when there is actual shit that she actually needs that i cant really do for her there.

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SunWuKung420 posted...

You should be concerned for the feelings of your family and not yours regarding the guy but that would require a modicum of empathy.

hey, i dont remember you going to any funerals in the fat walking dead, so maybe practice what you preach.

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Noop_Noop posted...

that would be one person: my aunt. my wife and i have spent 5 of the past 6 nights at her house doing our best to comfort her. she is understandably an inconsolable mess (she was the one who found him). I am there for her. I guess i just dont understand how his funeral service is for her, especially when there is actual shit that she actually needs that i cant really do for her there.

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inloveanddeath0 posted...

bro, im told old to understand you kids and your heiroglyphics. i dont know what that means.

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Damn, Im sorry, bro. Same thing happened to my cousin in 2018.

I still dont even know how to feel about it.

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Noop_Noop posted...

bro, im told old to understand you kids and your heiroglyphics. i dont know what that means.

I'm just unsure of your indifference to this subject. I'm assuming you were not close

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inloveanddeath0 posted...

I'm just unsure of your indifference to this subject. I'm assuming you were not close

My aunt and I were fairly close. I for sure know her better than any of my other aunts and uncles. My cousin and I were not.

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Noop_Noop posted...

My aunt and I were fairly close. I for sure know her better than any of my other aunts and uncles. My cousin and I were not.

Ah okay. I'm not close with any of my family really outside of parents

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Noop_Noop posted...

I guess i just dont understand how his funeral service is for her

Because wakes and funerals are for the grieving, not the deceased. It's a time to bid farewell to the departed, but moreso it's a showing of support and a sharing of grief. Commiserating with those you love who may be in pain.

Yes, you can say goodbye or say a prayer for the one you've lost, but clearly you don't care to and that's fine. But I assume the aunt you speak of will be there, and while there may be plenty of other family there for her to lean on, you can never tell how much it will mean to someone that you show up and do something as simple as hold their hand in silence.

If you want to harbor a grudge towards your cousin for wasting his life, go for it. You do you. But instead of focusing on "Why should we be making a big deal of of this guy's funeral?", try instead just thinking about the people you actually give a shit about and how you can help them. Might make a bitter pill a little easier to swallow if you just change your perspective a bit and approach it from a point of helping your loved ones instead of seeing your cousin off, you know?

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Far-Queue posted...

Because wakes and funerals are for the grieving, not the deceased. It's a time to bid farewell to the departed, but moreso it's a showing of support and a sharing of grief. Commiserating with those you love who may be in pain.

Yes, you can say goodbye or say a prayer for the one you've lost, but clearly you don't care to and that's fine. But I assume the aunt you speak of will be there, and while there may be plenty of other family there for her to lean on, you can never tell how much it will mean to someone that you show up and do something as simple as hold their hand in silence.

If you want to harbor a grudge towards your cousin for wasting his life, go for it. You do you. But instead of focusing on "Why should we be making a big deal of of this guy's funeral?", try instead just thinking about the people you actually give a shit about and how you can help them. Might make a bitter pill a little easier to swallow if you just change your perspective a bit and approach it from a point of helping your loved ones instead of seeing your cousin off, you know?

i donno man. thats all fair enough, but at a certain point should i not be able to consider my own wants and needs? i dont want to go view the dead body of and pretend to pay respects to a person i absolutely did not respect. i do not like the idea of letting this fucker continue to inconvenience me in death. i do not like the idea of lying to my family, and pretending as if this actually hurts me when it really REALLY does not.

im just pissing and moaning, and i will probably end up going, but fuck me do i ever not want to.

i do appreciate you trying to talk me down and not being a total dick about it though, so thanks for that homie.

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Absolutely you should put your own well-being first. On the other side of the coin, if you're unable to move past the anger you're feeling, you may not be in the best shape to be the "shoulder to cry on"

I'm just offering my two cents. Do with it what you will. Sorry you have to go through all this.

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i had a bunch more angry and salty shit i was gonna type, but fuck it. i dont want to give this shit anymore of my energy.

youre a good dude farqueue

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Even if the guy was a complete dick I am pretty sure his mother and/or father might miss him. I mean he stole money from you twice which is bad and not something people should do but it's not the end of the world.

Losing a small chunk of money once or twice doesn't mean shit in the grand scheme of things. I also will point out that most people that go down the path of drugs like Heroin have a lot of problems and are trying to escape from them in most cases.

Noop_Noop posted...

i had a bunch more angry and salty shit i was gonna type

what else is new ha ha am I right fellas??

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Sorry to hear about your cousin man. One thing about drugs is that drugs do not discriminate. Rich, poor, Black, White etc etc it doesn't matter drugs if you use them will get you sooner or later.

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Noop_Noop posted...

family is fucking stupid potd. cherish the relationships that you form by choice.

I believe it's more people that are stupid not just family. Just because someone is your family it doesn't mean you MUST feel anything towards them. Some folk can't comprehend the fact I feel nothing towards my own mum. I don't even know if she's still alive or not to be honest. To cut a long story short me and my siblings have had nothing todo with her for reasons most out life. In most cases it's the dad that's the arsehole when it comes to not having a parent in their life but it's very much possible for it to be the other way around or worse yet have no parents in your life. I've come to the conclusion that these folk who have a hard time grasping that possibility must have parents who are together and good parents at that so can't understand.

As for deaths of family members? Those that are part of my life everyday are the ones I care about. The rest? They are just my family by blood. Nothing more. When my Granddad died I still went to his funeral but didn't feel anything as I hadn't seen him in 20 years. I was just there to support my dad.


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I'm actually with the OP here which is rare. A funeral may be for the living but I'd consider it rude to show up if you actually hated the guy and are glad he's dead. Realistically it probably won't make a whole lot of difference.

My uncle was similar. Got hooked on meth, his wife and kids left him, he burned every bridge in the family he could, then died. There were a few times I had to prepare myself to kill him if need be and that was unpleasant. I did go to the funeral and I don't really regret it, but I didn't say anything there either and I'm fairly certain I wasn't really even noticed.

It did have an effect on me though. This person who was an obvious piece of shit for like 10 years who personally screwed over everyone at the funeral still had a lot of people sincerely grieving over him. Wishing they could have done something to help him out of that spiral that led to his death, wishing they'd talked to him one more time, given him one more chance.

If you ever end up feeling suicidal and like no one will miss you, remember dozens of people cried over this shithead. It just kind of puts into perspective how much our lives actually matter to people who don't have a reason to care.

That's not a reason to taint someones send off from this world with fake sympathy for the sake of appearances though. I'd say don't go.

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