A reader inherited their late aunt’s house and is renovating the home — but the rest of the family thinks it’s too soon.
Andrew and Agnes hate everything we’ve done. This spring, I tore out some lilac bushes and planted a vegetable garden and put herbs and leaf lettuce in the planters out front, and Agnes broke down sobbing about it. They drop by almost every Sunday after church just to criticize our work. At every family gathering, we have to hear how Emily would’ve hated it and how we should have waited before “tearing her house apart.” We’re sick of it. I never promised to maintain the house like a shrine.
In the meantime, you could say to them that you know it has been difficult losing Emily and you miss her as well. Express your hope to make as many new and wonderful memories as Emily did in her admirable lifetime.Less than year is a perfectly understandable time to still be grieving a beloved sister and mother. Was this the family home the kids grew up in? Then it’s doubly understandable that they’re experiencing a second kind of death as they see their childhood home change.
Refuse to engage with the subject. Turn the conversation, end phone calls, leave the room and maybe be busy for a few Sundays to break the cycle of habitual shrine visiting cousins intent on raining on the parade. If you can pivot house conversations to warm remembrances of Emily you may actually soothe the root of what is likely driving all this: raw grief misplaced on an easy target.Every week, we ask readers to answer a question submitted to Carolyn Hax’s live chat or email.
. New questions are typically posted on Fridays, with a Monday deadline for submissions. Responses are anonymous unless you choose to identify yourself and are edited for length and clarity.
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