You must be talking about this piece, right? If so, I agree, UGH. A little out of place at a memorial, but worse, it’s so obviously a “show piece,” and it’s a cliche, and it screams “look at me, I can play the organ.” Why does your mother need to make her own funeral about you and your talent? I’d plan to be out of town or something; I totally sympathize with you.
I TOTALLY agree! I’ve played the viola at all three of my grandparents’ funerals (my other grandad died before I was born). I suppose I was kind of glad I did it in hindsight because I know they would have liked it, but at the time it was awful. I didn’t want to do it because piano is my main instrument and I don’t play the viola much anymore and I don’t think I’m that good at it. Also my uncle was a professional viola player so it’s even more embarrassing playing in front of him. It’s stressful enough playing in public but when you’re upset due to the death of a loved one it’s a little bit unreasonable to be asked to play. Music is an emotional thing anyway and because I was playing music that reminded me of them and because solo viola in church acoustics is a pretty mournful sound it made it even worse. I played from memory so I didn’t need to read music but the tears streaming down my face and my running nose hardly helped. It was fine and the music was fine and I got plenty of thanks and appreciation etc. but it just wasn’t a nice experience and I felt emotionally blackmailed into doing it (It was aunts and uncles who requested it - not my grandparents and not my parents). I felt like I was not being given the same privacy in my grief that my brothers and sisters had because I had to stand up in front of everyone. I will NEVER ask a close relative/ friend to perform at my funeral. I think it is unreasonable.
As a bit of an aside and FWIW I don’t like playing at family weddings either - OK you’re not upset which is something, but you do feel stressed - ‘What if I get my cue wrong? What if I mess it up on them? What if they ask me to play something that’s difficult or something I don’t feel totally confident playing?’ etc. I played at two of my brother’s weddings (violin at one, keyboard at the other). It definitely wasn’t as bad as playing at a funeral but still I felt like I was missing my own brothers’ wedding ceremonies because I was playing. My sister (who also played at one of my brother’s weddings) is getting married this June. She specifically didn’t ask me to play at her wedding because she knows what it’s like and appreciates the fact that I might actually want to be down watching her getting married with the rest of my family. Also at my brother’s wedding me and my sister ended up getting to the reception a little later than the rest of the immediate family because we were packing away instruments and music etc. after the photos.
They didn’t have a seating plan (and the moral of this story is ‘Always have a seating plan people unless you want an unseemly scramble for the ‘best’ tables’). So we ended up sitting right at the back of the room with the neighbours of our sister-in-law’s parents. I know I sound like a real moan now but this is a bit of a bugbear of mine. I just think people should let immediate family members just enjoy these occasions (or grieve privately if a funeral)without emotional blackmail.
“Be a good boy” always seemed a bit unreasonable to me!!!
She’ll be dead, so you don’t have to worry about her being pissed off at you if you DON’T play it. However, to ease the guilt I suspect you’ll be feeling, why don’t you record yourself playing the song. Most funeral music is on tape or CD, and not actually tended to by a live musician anymore. That way, your mom will still have you performing the music she likes, and you won’t have to actually “work” at her funeral. Problem solved.
I knew this guy, this horrible horrible excuse for a guy when I was a teenager.
He died in a horrible way, after doing some horrible things. I, frankly, hated him and wasn’t gleeful about his death but I sure didn’t feel bad.
My mother tried to force me to go to his funeral. “For his parents.”
She didn’t win, but to this day I wonder if she would want someone at a funeral for her son if they hated the son. The thought of someone coming to my dad’s recent funeral who hated him makes me feel ill.
Julie
My parents, during the summer of my first year at college, made me go on a vacation with them and my grandmother to Branson, Missouri.
Branson is like my anti-Mecca. It’s anathema to me. A town glorifying country music. That apparently doesn’t even have a decent bookstore. Argh.
It was hellish. You don’t know pain until you’ve seen the Osmonds perform live.
Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a little.
When my husband and I were finishing our last course of fertility treatments, unsuccessfully, we began to talk about adoption. My parents had adopted my older brother and sister and we started to ask them procedural questions. My mom flat out said she didn’t want any “black grandbabies”. I laughed at her and pointed out that it might be easier for us to adopt from oversees or a mixed-race child here. She went nuts, saying my father couldn’t handle it blah blah blah. I told her to mind her own business. Turns out, the State wouldn’t let us adopt due to health reasons and we can’t afford private adoption. My husband and I have come to the conclusion that, although children are a nice concept, it’s just not the right road for us. Years later, my mom tried to hassle me about not having children. <<sigh>>
Mom also asked me to sing at her funeral. Um, no. “But you’ve done it for so many people, why can’t you do this for your mother.” Don’t think it will happen, but what would you have wanted me to sing? “The Theme from Exodus” I laughed so hard I cried. My mom, ever the melodramatic, wanted me to sing a deep sad song and break up while singing. But me, having a deep twisted sense of humor, thought it was hilarious to sing This Land Is Mine. God Gave This Land To Me; This Brave And Ancient Land To Me. At a graveside service. Grave… Land… Bwah ha ha ha ha! Funny, she never brought it up again.
I was with my ex when he died, and I went to his funeral. I did it for his sister and my son. I pretty much had had my fill of him. He was a terrible father and a lousy partner, and not much of a human being. But I did it for the living. After all, the dead person is DEAD fercrissakes.
My father asked me to have children. Not because I want to have them (I don’t, my SO doesn’t), but because he wants grandchildren.
He went as far as to ask my SO’s mother to start putting pressure on us. For some reason my father feels that if his genetic material isn’t passed on, he has no validation for his life. (He is a smart, educated man, who has help improve more peoples lives then I can ever hope to.) That one put a strain in our relationship for quite a while. Eventually I say him down and told him that this was a topic that was no longer open for discussion, in any form. Thankfully, that has seemed to work.
Certainly not as dramatic as some of the prior examples, but landing squarely in weirdville for me, my father asked me to take a few months leave from work and go on a zillion mile road trip with him starting in April.
Mom and Dad are retired, and finding out now that they apparently had very different ideas of what retirement means. Dad wants to travel while they still have that magic trifecta of money, time and health, Mom wants to sit home and grow moss, with her only traveling being a trip back to see us kids/grandkids every other week or so. She’s got no issues with driving over five hundred miles just to be here for an afternoon, but huge issues with leaving for a month or two to drive a scenic route to Alaska. She just refuses to be away from home/us kids that long.
Dad realized that my first reason for saying no thanks to the trip would be my obligations as a mother, he proposes that Mom be made to come live at my house for the duration of the trip. If she was willing to leave home for that long, at all, wouldn’t it make more sense for her to go with him to begin with?