after a recent death in the family

My mother’s sister, five years older than she, died yesterday.

Her memorial service will be scheduled in the next few weeks, and it may conflict with a birthday celebration the excellent wife is planning for herself. It’s a birthday-with-a-zero-at-the-end, so it has some import, but the number is higher than she likes to admit, so there’s some weirdness about the celebration (Edit 10/28/11: The excellent wife has informed me that her reluctance to have a large celebration for the occasion has solely to do with the amount of preparation & work involved, and not any feelings about age. I stand corrected.). The memorial service will take place several hundred miles away from Central Jersey, thus, it will be a major commitment in time to go. My wife and I had a disagreement last night about whether I should attend the memorial service if it’s on her birthday weekend. There are a number of factors to consider:

• I was never this aunt’s favorite person, nor was she mine. She tolerated my presence at family gatherings, but it seemed clear that there was a direct proportion between the quality of her life and my absence from it.
  
• My relationship with my own family of origin is not the stuff of 50’s sitcoms, either. We can be mannered, and even entertain one another, but there are long memories on both sides of damages done. Further, I have made reference to my psychological instabilities on this blog; I have not told my family of their intensity. My in-laws, on the other hand, have always appeared glad to see me, and it’s always easier for me to be with them (one factor is that they are a 45-minute-drive away, rather than the twelve-hour-drive to Dixie where my parents are now). As a result, there was a nickel’s worth of truth in my mother’s mouth when, years ago, she said, “I guess you have a new family now”.
  
• I missed the wedding of the daughter of a cousin when I did the Anchor House ride over the summer. I don’t think I’ve ever met the daughter, and I’ve not seen the cousin in decades. My mother was disappointed that I did not show up, and said that that was probably the last time the family would get together for a happy occasion; the implication being that the funerals would be starting after that. This memorial is the next occasion.
  
• I’ve long had a problem about being a disappointment to my parents. They say every time we speak on the phone that they are proud of me and that they are glad when I call. But they need to say it, because I don’t feel it. I will probably never know whether there was a real cause to this feeling of disappointment or not. I don’t want to disappoint my mother by not showing up.
  
• My parents are, of course, old enough to be my parents, and I’m pushing 60. My father has recently had an ailment that should have cleared up by now, and it hasn’t.

I don’t know what I’m going to do. Of course, if the memorial doesn’t interfere with the birthday, all of this angst will be for nothing. That doesn’t mean I can stop doing it.

Edit 10/26/11: The memorial will not conflict with the excellent wife's birthday do. I'm firming up my plans to go, which will depend on when I can get off from work.