Woman demands that SIL remove 2 deceased children from father's obituary.
When this woman is conflicted about her father's obituary, she asks Reddit:
'WIBTA if I ask/demand my sister in law to remove her two stillbirths from my father's obituary?'
I'm in a Christian family, and my SIL's stillbirths hit her hard. We'll call my dad 'Ralph', and his father 'Tony.' The first stillbirth, we'll call her 'Dianne', happened at 9 months. This was 7 years ago.
The second stillbirth, we'll call her 'Sarah', happened at 6 months. This was 4 years ago.
Regardless, she has had 4 successful births, currently aged 1,3,6, and 9. They're a happy family together, and have not forgotten their unborn children.
They held memorial services for both, for the immediate family. She has gotten tattoos of their footprints on their own feet, and can't wait to get to heaven to finally meet them.
My brother feels similarly, but that's mostly because of his choice to support and comfort her through both losses. They're his daughters too, and could've moved on, but it hit his wife hard so he went through that journey with her.
As far as my dad goes, I'm positive he was not impacted so harshly. He was definitely there to console them in their loss, and was briefly sad that he wouldn't get to meet new granddaughters. But, he made years of happy memories of his 5 living grandchildren.
My SIL wrote this in the draft of his obituary: Ralph is preceded in death by his father Tony and granddaughter’s Dianne and Sarah.
My SIL has been very open about her losses on Facebook, and everyone in her circles knows about them and knows they're truly lost family to her. However, my dad's circles and my SIL's circles do not overlap so neatly. There's people that know my dad that have never met my SIL.
My worry is that the sentence will be a negative conversation starter that pulls the focus away from remembering my father: 'oh my goodness, Ralph had two granddaughters that passed away?!'.
WIBTA if I tell her to remove the mention of her stillborn daughters from my dad's obituary?
Let's find out.
purpledoors3 writes:
NTA. I get maybe having the stillbirths mentioned in her obit or her husband's, but I've never seen one mentioned in a grandparent's obit. Sounds like a conversation you need to have with your brother. Even if you just added in stillborn, it makes more sense. Why did she write it anyways?
lamadrecantante writes:
YTA. Don't try to dictate how people grieve. At all.
It's pretty different but my father tried to dictate who could come to my mother's memorial service.
If he didn't like someone or know them well, he didn't want them there. He failed to realize he wasn't the only one grieving my mother and that he took one of the worst days of mine and my siblings' lives and made it even worse with the petty drama he insisted on causing.
Just don't do this. Everyone gets to mourn their own way and you don't have a monopoly or get to dictate terms for others.
Labrett777 writes:
NTA- And I realize this is a very unpopular opinion. I am just going by my experience. Unsure of some things when writing an extremely significant obituary not too long ago I did research.
Ultimately an obituary’s main purpose is factual record keeping. We can delve into as much detail as we like, however the facts need to be true and clear for the general population & future generations.
This notice serves the important function of not only serving notice of death present day, but also as a document of reference for future generations.
IMO stillborn births should not be included as grandchildren. The mention of them would not only confuse people now, it would confuse people countless decades to come. This man’s death notice should not be the place to “not hurt feelings”.
Both pregnancies did not survive birth. Therefore they were not grandchildren & should not be listed in someone else’s obituary as such.