This might be a long one
My mother passed away a few weeks ago and my half sisters left me out of funeral arrangements.
My mother was receiving End of life care and we, my two older half sisters and I were supporting the care team.
I'm not really going to get into how that went but the older sister was very controlling deciding who can visit and when. A lot of underlying issues surfaced with the children of my oldest sister who'd also passed away. I said I was having nothing to do with it and wouldn't be stopping anyone from visiting. The sister who was very controlling has 3 adult children, 2 of which seem to live their life on social media, one in particular was posting images of my mother as she lay dying on various platforms. I bit my tongue as I didn't want to make matters worse.
So the morning my mother died, I had been staying overnight, I contacted my sisters when I realised death was imminent and unfortunately my mother passed away with me holding her hand. This is where it all went wrong.
I work in health care and guess I just went into work mode, I recorded time of death, phoned the community nurses and informed them. I never contacted my sisters as assumed they would be driving and would arrive shortly. I phoned my husband but he didn't answer as he was driving as well.
My daughter, who had been very close to both her gran and grandfather( he passed some years ago) had text me to ask how her gran was. I called her and informed her about her gran. My daughter was upset and said she would be over, she then messaged one of her best friends who happens to be one of my sisters stepsons. Unbeknownst to me he then messaged his father (my brother in law) and offered condolences. When my sister came in she was visibly angry that her stepson and known about the death before her. It was very uncomfortable. She made it quite clear that I shouldn't have called my daughter FWIW my daughter was very attentive of her gran and lived with her after my father had passed away so my mother wasn't on her own.
My other sister appeared and they both went into bedroom and I heard them whispering, when the nurses and doctor arrived they came through to lounge where I was sitting and proceeded again to make it clear I was wrong to phone my daughter.
My brother in law then arrived and gave me a dirty looks and went to my sisters to console them. They then berated me again and I got up and left.
I was very angry about my treatment and it brought back issues in that I was always excluded by them in every aspect of life. They would arrange family meals out with my mum and their families and myself and my family weren't invited. It was always the same excuse that they thought I was working but if they didn't ask how could they know. One of my sisters moved away and they along with my mum would visit a few times a year again I wasn't invited citing the same excuse or just nothing at all.
I accepted this and just left it, I never explained how I felt as I reasoned that I wouldn't give them the power to make me feel left out, at the end of the day it appeared I wasn't even a passing thought to them and it was their problem not mine.
After several hours I received a text message from my sister still saying she was angry but what was done was done and they needed me there. I replied I needed time to process everything that had happened early that say. I never went back to my mothers. Various messages took place mostly in family chat where my niece appeared to take control and telling everyone what was happening.
I learnt about funeral arrangements via a WhatsApp message. As you can imagine the relationship between us is even more strained and we are all executors of her will but they have been making decisions without involving me. They emptied both her flat and the family home. They took photographs and one of their daughters went through them to decide what photographs myself and family would get.
I could go on and in about it, I did phone one of them and said that I never thought I'd did anything wrong in phoning my daughter as when my father had passed away it was her husband that had told me and I hadn't created an issue with that as I had perceived us all as family and really who knew before another wouldn't change the outcome. I told her about all the incidents of being excluded and believed this was just another way to do so. She said she hadn't realised and hadn't thought about me not being at any family occasion which I pointed out was exactly what I was saying there was never any thought of me at all. I reiterated that I had accepted this but wanted them both to know that they had excluded me numerous times.
I'm now at the point where I'm thinking if I should have any contact with them at all, I think they're very toxic and now my mother is dead there's no need to have any involvement with them.
What should I do have it out properly with them or just walk away?