DEAR MISS MANNERS: My best friend since high school (though we are not as close as we once were) lives near our hometown, 2,000 miles from where I reside now. I want to ask a question now, to be ready for the eventual day when I may need to act.
Though she and I speak on the phone and text/email infrequently, we visit each other every other year or so and exchange lovely gifts on holidays and birthdays.
In our teens and 20s, we were relatively close with each other’s families of birth. When my father passed away about 12 years ago, I flew home for the wake and funeral, and my best friend and her husband attended. They also sent a beautiful floral arrangement.
When the day comes that one or both of her parents passes, do I need to fly home for the occasion? It goes without saying that I would send lovely flowers. But what else could I/should I do?
GENTLE READER: If you are able to attend, it would be lovely, as a gesture of the past friendship. But with some distance now, as long as you write a heartfelt condolence letter (sending the aforementioned flowers would also be charming), that is sufficient.
One hopes that when it comes to attending funerals, family members are grateful for attendance, but not expecting it. In a culture of counting “likes” as a measure of popularity, Miss Manners warns, a funeral is not the place to tally up.
(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)