Community Chat

[coolbeans]

Hi. I have a question for you all. Here is the situation: One of my oldest friends, (from grammar school), mother passed away Friday. My friend and I haven’t spoken in awhile. We email from time to time and I am more at fault for not keeping in touch than her. She actually mentioned it when she emailed me about her mom's death. Which of course makes me feel worse at this time. Her mom was about 74, her dad is the same and has health issues and my friend and I are in our mid 40’s.

Anyway, she emailed me Friday night to say her mom had had a procedure in the hospital on Wednesday, something went wrong and by Friday she had died. I saw the email Saturday around 1am when I woke up in the middle of the night. I immediately wrote to her and told her how sad and upset I was etc. and said I would call her. I was terrified to call her since it has been at least a year since we have spoken and I just felt so uncomfortable.

Today (Sunday) I called her around lunchtime and we spoke for about 5 seconds and she was busy with her father and said she would call me back. When I hung up I felt bad since I didn’t want her to be burdened with having to call me back at this time. It’s dinnertime now and I haven’t heard back from her, which is ok, since I didn’t really expect a call back. I emailed her again and just texted her to tell her that I didn’t want to intrude, that I understood that she is busy with her father and family etc and that my thoughts and prayers are with her.

Now I live at least 2 hours away from her and I have no idea if a funeral was already held or when there might be one. In my text I asked if she could email me information on a service for her mom. She is Korean, as are her parents and I am not, I am Jewish, and I don’t know what customs they have in this regard. At this point I don’t know what else to do. I want to do the right thing for her and her family. My mother lives closer to her parents and offered to go to a service if I find out about it.

My question is if you guys have any suggestions/ideas for me. I don’t want to be a pain in the a**. Do I call again tomorrow(monday)? If I don’t hear at all do I assume that I will miss a service and funeral and if I do, do I send a card, flowers, fruit basket? Any suggestions would be helpful. I don’t want this to be the end of our friendship and I don’t want to mess this up. Thanks for your help.