it’s a bit more complex than that: some of these coworkers are actually genuine and I enjoyed working with them, the department is in constant need of accredited personnel but the manager seems to be a complete asshole.

how long did you last there? And didn’t anyone higher than him check the department’s turnover?

Why do your coworkers want you to work for him?

because they’re always shorthanded.

They’re not my direct coworkers but we worked together for 2 years before I transferred. Some of them miss how I worked, apparently.

My dad started distrusting most of academic science, so every time he is telling me something outlandish about spiritual things I just say that I view those things differently and then tell him how and why.

how can you remain so cool headed? Because my father has worked in academia and now he sometimes acts like a maga moron spewing their points without even questioning them. It’s like he either wants or needs to be angry at something.

That’s why I wanted him to meet new people, so he gets his head out of his butt.

It’s just very sad a person I thought so highly of has become… this. And it might even be worse.

“Fox news is not a good source. Have you seen it somewhere else?

now that you mention this, me and my father had a similar convo like a year ago. I reacted like you wrote and he stopped it for a bit. It seems he forgot.

The other option would he he’s always been this conservative but always managed to hide it and now he either cannot anymore or doesn’t care.

how depressing.

Fox news had accurately called the 2020 Election for Biden first. Their viewers considered this a betrayal and switched to Newsmax and other far-right channels by the million.

can you provide a source?

but people blindly enraged at imaginary enemies don’t seem to be moved

I’m myself coming to terms that most people are mediocre and lots are simply stupid. I try to stay away from them and hope to not become one of them.

Though I’m not sure if him spending time with a bunch of other senior men is going to solve this issue.

this is true and might be a losing battle:

me and every working age son or daughter: we have our lives, children to raise, work to do to pay bills, commute, buy food, cook, prepare our next day, relax, we sometimes don’t live near them…

seniors: they have absolutely nothing going on in their lives and a device that offers them unlimited rage bait…

we cannot win unless we take their phones from them or heavily censor them, but my father is not that far yet…

but I try n remain positive: I thought it would be a good idea he meets new people because not every senior is going to be an angry person with no life and he may learn something meeting people from different walks of life, at least I hope so.

He should leave his bubble.

thank you for your wall of text, I enjoyed reading it.

His mother refused to visit. Old world “A mother shouldn’t visit her son, her son should respect her and come visit”. So he did. Then she guilted him into moving back home, giving up opportunities farther away. He is happy in the sense that he’s married and has kids and a fulfilling life, but he will always have the what if questions. What if his now wife and him had stayed, what if they had done this or that. I promise you, if you let them drive your life you will never be truly fulfilled.

Don’t we all have those what if questions? Maybe I ask because I’m myself unfulfilled with some parts of my life.

I’m not sure moving them or the surviving parent closer to me would benefit them: they’ve living in GA most of their lives, are used to the way people act and speak, climate is warm, and I live in NY, where people move faster, speak differently and it’s going to be cold… It would be easier for me but I don’t think they would enjoy upstate NY much.

The sooner you accept that their expectations of a “good son” will never be met, the sooner you can think more practically about how you want to proceed with life.

This is very good advice.

I’ve just also done the “Mom I’m not doing the guilt trip today. Your feelings are your own, I’m happy where I live and if you have a problem with it that’s your problem to work on, not mine”.

Stealing this.

Thank you for your post.

Complete denial of the situation. Even refuses to wear a hearing aid. Will not tolerate any kind of house keepers or paid help.

Confused and keeps shopping for shit he does not need.

is there any solution at all for a problem like this?

hi, just wanted to thank you for posting this. Religion is completely secondary to this.

I did mean that the funeral with relatives would still go ahead, but you would only attend something personal, as an extra to the traditional funeral.

this is a great idea.

the optics will be bad and people will talk shit.

no doubt about it, specially in the south.

I’m guessing the people in this thread calling similar feelings “petty” or “insane” just don’t have the same level of trauma.

correct, there is a huge bias on this thread about family, happy family, keeping up appearances… I never expected it to be that strong.

your first paragraph made me laugh.

Good luck to you.

That’s the childish response I was talking about.

then I’m childish. Note I don’t say that meaning I should change. What I’m tempted to do is to agree with mother what to do with his corpse after he dies because I have the feeling she also hates some family members pretty strongly and would prefer to be her genuine self during a ceremony like this than having to cater to visitors and see the ones that wronged her, pretending all is fine and dandy.

People are flawed.

absolutely. As you said, I’m childish and don’t want to change. My father has the good traits and also the bad ones I mentioned. Why should I only mention his good side? Because we’re family? My father cheated on my mother, my mother forgave him. This I’ll never understand.

A funeral is a time when everyone who cared for you comes together to create the last impression. You, as his son, have a lot of power to make it a good one.

yes, with the ones I care about, the ones I respect, not with a bunch of rednecks.

As I understand it from your description, you have prioritized avoiding discomfort over attending his funeral (his final wish), and you’ve prioritized avoiding discomfort by telling him that you’re going to skip instead of even softening the blow by shouldering the burden of a white lie. You chose yourself twice over your dying dad’s feelings and final requests.

Because I don’t know what’s the right call here: do I treat him like the adult he always was, being brutally honest with him when dealing with difficult issues because we all die or do I treat him like a scared child incapable of having sound decisions anymore, a person that only reacts and thinks emotionally?

If you don’t accept and possibly forgive his humanity now, when will you?

this is a very good question. How does forgiving and accepting his humanity look like to you? Because to me, now, accepting his humanity means white lying to him, lying to him to hide an unpleasant reality. But this means I’m treating him like a child, means the father I always knew is gone.

You go to comfort and commiserate with the survivors.

agreed, with the ones I care about

Spending 2-3 hours at the funeral home with his open casket, is a more personal way to say your farewells and honour him.

as said, I wouldn’t mind a small Christian funeral where I could vet visitors. I’m all for a personal, even intimate farewell, but he wants the crowd.

Scattering his ashes at an agreed location of shared importance for the both of you, can be a powerful final goodbye.

Things I proposed already:

• burn his corpse, use the ashes to grow a tree, small ceremony with me, mother and brother. Even with a priest.

• burn his corpse to scatter his ashes on a river of his choosing, small ceremony with me, mother and brother. Even with a priest.

• burn his corpse, put the ashes in three small containers so each of us makes his own ritual.

• not burn the corpse, simply put the corpse in a hole, plant a tree over the corpse.

he wants the Christian cross with the crowd next to his mother. And me there, even if I feel is stupid. This is to be taken literally, he has already bought a place for my corpse to be buried next to him.

I feel he doesn’t care about how this makes me feel, which I guess happens to so many families when conflicts like this arise.

Are you even ever going to see these people again?

the only ones I care about are my mother and brother.

Ask your mom/siblings if they need the support, if you like them.

this is the best answer so far. With difference.

I can’t fathom why people want you to engage with people who make your life worse for no gain. Yeah, smile for your boss because you need the paycheck, but this?

cannot upvote this enough

yours is an interesting post, I’ll try to rebut it.

I don’t want to honor an important person by having to deal with people I don’t like, that in the past stated very clearly they don’t like my mother to the point of calling her a gold digger (and worse).

Something I’ll never understand is why my father is so accommodating with people like that for family’s sake. To me that makes him weak and lets others walk all over him, even to the point of disrespecting his own wife for ‘family’. This I’ll never understand.

To me doing what you propose means turning something pure into a show, a theatrical production.

I’ll have to talk to my mother about this. If he goes first, she’s the one who’ll decide.

I agree with you, just wanted to see how unpopular this position is

I agree with you but wanted to see how un-popular my take is