I agree, the response Prudence gave is the sort of thing that feels good when you're imagining it in the privacy of your own home, if that, not when you're actually saying it to your former neighbors.
I think other useful responses might be, "We're here to celebrate A&B's special day with our family. Please excuse me." "We're here to mourn C and honor her life. Please excuse me." "We're here to get D settled. Please excuse me." Because in all three of those cases, wedding, funeral, and moving into assisted living, you have a specific reason for being there that might expose you to the outside world but also is important enough to be worth it and should not have the focus diverted from it. Reminding the other person that, hey, they're ALSO here to ATTEND A FUNERAL etc. is far more useful than snarking at them.
Especially--yes, "I blame you for my husband's suicide" was inappropriate. It absolutely was. But as the LW--are you really going to look back and say to yourself, "I'm so glad that I snarked at a widow whose husband recently killed himself about how she should give more money to charity and/or go to med school"? Yes, it was horrible for her to cast that blame, but if the rest of the community had been reasonable it would be easy to put into context as lashing out in a time of extreme grief. Sniping back is not going to make anything better.
no subject
I think other useful responses might be, "We're here to celebrate A&B's special day with our family. Please excuse me." "We're here to mourn C and honor her life. Please excuse me." "We're here to get D settled. Please excuse me." Because in all three of those cases, wedding, funeral, and moving into assisted living, you have a specific reason for being there that might expose you to the outside world but also is important enough to be worth it and should not have the focus diverted from it. Reminding the other person that, hey, they're ALSO here to ATTEND A FUNERAL etc. is far more useful than snarking at them.
Especially--yes, "I blame you for my husband's suicide" was inappropriate. It absolutely was. But as the LW--are you really going to look back and say to yourself, "I'm so glad that I snarked at a widow whose husband recently killed himself about how she should give more money to charity and/or go to med school"? Yes, it was horrible for her to cast that blame, but if the rest of the community had been reasonable it would be easy to put into context as lashing out in a time of extreme grief. Sniping back is not going to make anything better.