Would you cancel your trip?

[snowman]

Carl called last night from his visit with his parents (and my mother) and said "So Grampa just died". This was his father's father. I offered to go pick him up but he said he was fine and would stay where he was. He denies being upset about it and is planning on keeping his weekend plans (Boy Scout Board of Review and Court of Honor). Since the death was unattended there will be an autopsy, so no service for at least a few days, if the family has one at all.

Carl lost a friend from Scouts in March, my DSO's father died later in March (was a surrogate grandfather to Carl) and now his other grandfather.

We leave for Disney in 10 days. In light of how stressful this year has been for all of us, I think cancelling it would be a terrible idea. Losing the money aside, everybody has been looking forward to going and it would be a much needed respite from the sadness that has filled our lives for the last 6 months.

I figure I'll keep our plans the way they are and take each day one at a time. If he has a bad day where he can't cope we can just can our plans for that day and hang out at the resort. I don't want to throw his whole life into an uproar over this.

Sound like an okay tentative game plan?

 

[LadyShea]

I would not cancel the trip unless it meant being unable to attend the memorial, if he is devastated (something beyond normal grief), or if other family members were in dire need of support.

 

[BLAZEY]

Sorry to hear its been a rough year for your nephew. I think your plan of going to WDW and just taking it day by day is a great idea.

When I was 6 my dad was killed by a drunk driver. We were in shock and my grandparents thought it would be a good idea to just "get away" from life. They took us ( mom, sis(then 4.5) and I (6.5) to Disneyland. So I have BTDT.

IMO WDW would give him something positive to focus on at such a difficult time.

 

[Hannathy]

Go. The worst thing IMO when you are grieving is to sit around and think about it. When my Mom died I just wanted to keep busy, when I was home alone it was the worst. You find yourself thinking about them and getting all worked up. We ended up going to prof. baseball game the Easter after my Mom was gone, we had only been back from the funeral a couple of days and nothing was open and I couldn't stand being home on a holiday and thinking about her so we went where there were a lot of people and I was able to not dwell on it. I would think the same thing would help a young man. Take him his life has to go on and I bet his Grandfather would not want him to sit around grieving instead of getting out there and living.

 

[snowman]

Thank you for the kind words. Sitting home thinking about coulda/shoulda/woulda won't help any of us, let alone make him feel any better. I figure that those we cared about cared about us as well and they wouldn't be happy seeing us miserable.

With that in mind, we will be keeping our trip as planned, just with the expectation of having to ease off our touring agenda.

 

[dyna]

Even when DH's mother died the day before we left for disney we still went to disney but we arrived a couple days later than planned.