Family Feuds·
THE TWO DATES COLLIDE
A man faces a cruel scheduling clash between his grandfather's funeral and his unborn daughter's ultrasound, torn between mourning and welcoming a new life.
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He had two dates on the calendar, and both were impossible to ignore: his grandfather's funeral and his unborn daughter's 20-week ultrasound.
The poster says he and his wife are expecting a baby girl in November. About three weeks earlier, they had scheduled the anatomy scan, though by the time it came around it would actually be closer to 22 weeks. That appointment was supposed to be a big one, the kind where a family gets its first real look at the baby before the due date creeps closer.
Then his grandfather's health started slipping.
For the last week and a half, the decline had been slow but steady. He spoke with his father and other family members, and they told him the funeral would likely happen within a week of his grandfather's passing. With that in mind, the couple made a plan. He was asked to serve as a pallbearer. His wife said she would stay home with the dogs so they wouldn't have to be boarded, and he could drive the 4 to 4.5 hours north to his father's hometown on his own if needed.
Late last night or early this morning, his grandfather died.
He called his father right away. His dad was devastated, but, as the poster put it, was "holding on as much as one would when your father passes away." Then the exact timing came down: the funeral would be Wednesday at 10 a.m.
That was the same day as the ultrasound.
Suddenly the question wasn't abstract. It was a direct collision between a goodbye and a first look. The poster says his wife became upset that he planned to go to the funeral instead of the appointment. He suggested they FaceTime so he could still be part of it from afar.
"well we could FaceTime? But it's my grandfather," he said.
His wife pushed back immediately.
"yeah, but this is your daughter," she told him.
He says he understands why the ultrasound matters. He's excited to see his baby girl, too. But he's also grieving. He says he feels torn between a child he hasn't met yet and the grandfather he just lost. In his words, "My wife's feeling are always going to be valid, but I feel like mine aren't being considered in this situation."
Now he's stuck between the funeral and the scan, between family on one side and family on the other.
"I just.. I want to know if I'm the asshole here," he wrote.