Funerals, and getting husband out of the house

 My brother went to visit our uncle in hospital on Tuesday, he stayed overnight in a hotel and went to the hospital again yesterday before coming home.  Bro is very close to Uncle H, who has been kind of like a surrogate father to bro (our father buggered off  50 years ago and we've not seen him since).  Uncle H had 2 daughters, no sons, so my bro was like the son he never had.  He says Uncle is conscious, on oxygen, very weak and frail indeed, but has all his faculties and recognised my bro.  The hospital have stopped all his meds and say the end could come anytime.  My siblings and I have all said the same thing - waiting for Uncle to die in his last days very ill in hospital is just like it was with our mother, Uncle's sister.  And, in my case, with my beloved Aunt Sylvia (their youngest sister who was nearer my age) as well.  Sylvia, who was like my big sister and I was extremely close to, died a few months before my mother, I last saw her in hospital just 2 hours before she died, and it wasn't a nice experience, she was unresponsive, her breathing was strained and jagged, and she had a coughing fit, coughing up blood, it was horrendous actually.  It made me adamant that I didn't want to watch my mother die, I wanted to remember her as she was in better times.  I saw Mum 10 minutes after she died and that was quite horrific too, how she looked (not peaceful at all) has always stuck in my mind.  So my mother (who was the oldest sibling, Sylvia was the youngest), her brother and her 2 sisters will all have died within 3 or 4 years of each other - my other aunt died 2 years ago.  So I'm feeling very emotional and vulnerable right now.

Thank you all for the comments concerning the funeral.  I do want to go to the funeral, when it comes - it does seem a bit disrespectful talking about Uncle's funeral before he's even dead, but it is going to happen very soon and we all know that, so just being pragmatic.  My family has always been very supportive of each other with regard to serious illness and funerals, we all attend the funerals, even of those who technically were no longer in the family following divorces, when the divorce was amicable.  Whereas husband's (very large) family aren't close at all, they're scattered geographically, some of them are always at loggerheads for one reason or another, and they're more or less indifferent to each other.  So I will be going, with husband taking me to meet up with brother for the onward journey to the funeral.  I'm sure husband can drive back home by himself, I am probably worrying unnecessarily - I am an inveterate worrier by nature.  I'll get husband to ring me when he gets back home, just to settle my mind.

I had a nice long chat with a neighbour yesterday.  She and her partner both play Petanque (a kind of French bowls game) and had asked if we would like to join them.  Well, I'm not particularly interested, but I knew husband would be - when I asked him he said yes.  So I've arranged for him to go along with J and her partner, starting in a couple of weeks - they play twice a week.  So that will get him out of the house, socialising and being active (well, reasonably, it's not an energetic sport) for a couple of hours twice a week, and give me some much-needed time on my own to do whatever I want.  Win-win!

I've got dog food to make today, and a bit of batch cooking for the freezer.  Also bread - I have a packet sourdough mix, it's not a genuine sourdough, it has a few extra ingredients, but it tastes alright.  It's nearing the use by date so, although I'm not eating bread much at all lately, it needs to be used up, I'm not going to chuck it away.  When it's cooked, I'll slice and freeze it.