Thank you for the good wishes. Whatever springtime rituals are important in your family, please enjoy them to the fullest with the people (or Peeps) you are with.

I had a dear friend who died, and my entire family was friends with his family. My mom and I had decided we would drive down for the funeral with my daughter as she is on spring break 12 hours away - well, of course my sister, and the perp, are also going to drive down to be there. It will be a very interesting time (my daughter will not go to the funeral so she should not see the perp) - but my mom's idea is that I might as well face her now and get it over with - which in part is true. Unfortunately we will be forced to see each other at some point. Not sure about visiting with the family - I have decided to just move forward. This weekend is about being their from my friend's family and not about us. The holidays are surely a difficult time for all of us.

I am so sorry,I often think about what will happen at my in laws funerals,they are well into their 80's and are in bad health.It does not seem fair that he should be able to be there. And I believe when my husband sees him(whenever) there will be big trouble.He keeps telling me "When he turns 18 I am going to have a talk with him" I will tell him off, I have a mouth on me when I'm hurt/angry.I hope all goes well.Springtime is surely a time for new beginnings

holidays usually are hard this one wasn't for me and since we are states away I'm used to our small family celebrations. Kids had a fun easter and now we are looking forward to supportive family on my husband's side visiting us. As for family obligations they died when my family turned their back on me. And I guess I will deal with them when I have too. I'm not much for big todos is rather spend some meaningful time at the grave sight on my own. If it was someone I loved than I know they would understand,

The trip so far has been fine, and we have not run into her in our visits. I am not worried about the funeral, there will be many, many people that I will see and want to catch up with that she will not know. She was close with his sisters (who were 1/2 sisters), I was close to his entire family on both sides, and we were the same age so we have many of the same friends from school and childhood - so it will be very easy to avoid her there. I will be taking my daughter with me to a gathering after the service (there is nothing at a graveside, he will be cremated and I am not sure what they are going to do with the remains) - but again, there will be so many people there to reconnect with, that if she even shows up with the perp I will keep my daughter close and avoid them both. It is just awful that the entire situation happened and that we have to even deal with crap like this. While visiting with his sister, her daughter asked why we moved away from my mom, and I just kindly said "we had great job opportunities" and his sister looked at me and said "ha, I can read your faces, and I can tell there is more to that story" - so I took her aside and briefly explained, and explained that we would be in contact to visit as I was trying to avoid her.