I’m very sorry for your loss.
Death of a parent an awful and highly emotional thing. And it can make us lash out and judge things and people harshly, pointing blame because that’s always easier to do than realising that actually we’re just furious with the world.
I think that making any lasting decisions at such a time is always a mistake. People aren’t wholly rational at times like these and need time to grieve and find and settle in to a new kind of normal.
I don’t think your friend handled the situation very well and of course you feel let down. BUT I think it’s a mistake to judge a friendship on a single event and certainly on funeral attendance.
Going to the parent of a friend’s funeral is - at least from the many posts on the subject on here - clearly one of those subjects that splits the population. It’s like shoes on or off in a house isn’t it? Most people have an opinion on it and one that they see as absolutely right and have many reasons for thinking so, but there is an equal number of people who have an opposing view and have equally strong and seemingly valid reasons for believing it. (Personally, I don’t believe a carpet should ever be held in higher regard than a guest). Of course the truth is that there is no set rule on it and it is purely a matter of opinion and often set by cultural norms and practices.
There is no rule on expectations around friends attending funerals. Often there may be cultural or other expectations based upon one’s own upbringing and people set up their own expectations in their heads based on these and their needs at the time, but none of these expectations are necessarily shared or understood by others.
I have several Indian and Irish friends. Both lots would be slightly shocked if half the town weren’t in attendance at a funeral. It’s the coming together of a community. My upbringing finds that alien and stressful.
I was not brought up like that and to me and my family funerals are quiet things intended for the family and friends of the deceased to grieve. It’s not about someone’s standing in the community and it certainly isn’t about show. It’s a time to quietly grieve and to say goodbye, and, while there might be something quiet afterwards, the idea that I would want to be having to host or mingle or make small talk to lots of practically strangers, would feel too much. I wouldn’t want my close friends (except perhaps those that spent time with my parents) and certainly not my in-laws there. I wouldn’t find it a support, I’d find it a pressure. And certainly I know many others who would feel similar and would never even think of attending the funeral of someone they never or barely knew, they’d see it as an imposition.
That doesn’t mean my way is the right way, but neither does it mean that the other way is correct. Both are.
The problem comes when two opposing takes on how things should be done clash, but clash without ever actually being discussed. We don’t talk about death very much in this country and, like so many things, slights are felt and often without the other person knowing they’ve done anything wrong.
Your friend should have declined. She was wrong not too. But I can absolutely understand why she and others wouldn’t think that coming to someone else’s parents funeral was an easy or natural or done thing, and why she clearly got herself into a mess over it. Maybe, later, after the dust is settled say you wish she’d let you know. But don’t fixate on this, and don’t ruin a friendship because her expectations around funerals are different to yours.