ArcaMax

Dear Buzzkill: Sincere congratulations on providing summers at the shore for your family for an impressive 30 years.

Congratulations, too, on your “zero guilt” stance. Zero guilt over your choice is the surest sign that you were doing the right thing (for you and others) over the years, and that you are doing the right thing now.

Sibling groups are something like ocean liners – changing direction extremely slowly and occasionally causing a little nausea when someone rocks the boat.

Of course there is some residual resentment as you take this annual gift away! The resentment stems from the fact that they don’t want to take on this annual financial and organizational burden. They also don’t like this “guilt-free” business. How dare you?!

There is some likelihood that after a year off, one of your siblings might pick up the slack for next year. Or perhaps one of the younger generation will choose to do as you did all those years ago. (Wouldn’t that be great?!)

You are saying the right things. You might also add: “I was so happy to be able to do this for such a long time. It was my pleasure. I hope someone else will choose to step up. But if not, we had a good run.”

Dear Amy: I attended a memorial for a relative and was surprised to see an elderly man there wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants.

I did speak with the man, and he made it clear that he knew about the service ahead of time, so it wasn’t as if he just found out and showed up at the last minute.

He just decided that this was what he was going to wear to a memorial service?

What is your opinion about someone attending a wake dressed like this?

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