Dear Amy: I have an older brother who is battling lymphoma and liver cancer in stage 4. It is too late for surgery, so they are treating him on an outpatient basis. The prospects are not good.
My twin brother was recently hired to work at a funeral home.
He emails me and our older brother almost daily about his duties at the funeral home.
These emails are extremely detailed accounts of preparing bodies (“they don’t complain”), transporting bodies, preparing for funerals, placing the heavy coffin on the grave in bands and straps, and then waiting for the family to leave so that can lower the coffin downwards (“sometimes it seems like an eternity”).
Amy, I’m struggling with these emails, thinking that if I were the one fighting for my life, I wouldn’t want to read or hear about it.
These details annoy me, but I am more concerned about my older brother and how it affects him.
However, I don’t want to open a cauldron of earthworms.
My husband says to stay out of this and not get involved.
I’m not sure what to do.
Do you have any thoughts or suggestions on what I could say?
– Mourning
Dear Grieving: First of all, making fun of the important and sacred work of preparing a body for burial (“they don’t complain”) is extremely unprofessional and insensitive.
Each person who passed through this funeral home was a loved one, friend or family member of someone who paid the funeral home for this important service. The deceased and his family must be respected, both when preparing for burial and afterwards.
Your twin brother desperately needs sensitivity training.
When your husband advises you to “stay out of it”, what is he saying? These emails are addressed to you, so I would say that you are already in it.
These notifications annoy you, so you have the right (and the responsibility) to tell your brother the truth about how they affect you.
I suggest that you send him an email: “I can tell by his detailed descriptions that his work is engaging. I’m really happy for you who seem to love your job. However, to be completely honest, I find the detailed discussions about what goes on behind the scenes at the funeral home very disturbing – in large part because our older brother is fighting for his own life. I don’t know how he feels about these descriptions, but in my sister’s opinion, I would like you to be more sensitive.
Dear Amy: My mother passed away in 1996. She gave me her wedding ring.
My youngest nephew, who is also my mother’s youngest grandson, was getting married for the second time to a girl I really thought would be “the one”. (Their first marriage ended in divorce.)
Anyway, I gave my nephew my mother’s ring at this wedding. He was so moved that he cried. I knew he loved the idea.
Well, the second marriage lasted only five years.
My nephew has three daughters from his first marriage and I would prefer the ring to be in the family.
Do I have the right to ask for the ring back?
– In hope
Dear Hoping: You have the right to ask for anything, as long as your expectations are reasonable.
I assume your nephew gave this ring to his second wife. State laws seem to vary as to whether wedding rings are either matrimonial property (owned by both and subject to division after divorce) or separate property (individual property). Family heirlooms are often considered a separate category and (according to my research) a judge can request that the ring be returned to his family.
If the two did not divorce in court, but have a cordial relationship, his nephew could certainly ask his ex if she would return the ring to keep it in her family.
Yes, you have a right to ask if he would be willing to try.
Dear Amy: “Hurt in Ohio” was very upset because a brother received all the family photo albums after his mother’s death.
Thank you for pointing out that parents should share the photos in order to pass them on to all family members.
My mother prepared the albums for each of her children and left other photos with the orientation that we should share and exchange.
– thankful
Dear Grateful: Family photos have little monetary value, but their emotional value is impossible to measure.
You can send an email to Amy Dickinson at [email protected] or send a letter to Ask Amy, PO Box 194, Freeville, NY 13068.