Would you be upset if no one told you that your relative had passed away?

Canada
December 22, 2006 8:13am CST
I recently got a phone call from my sister. Someone had offered her condolences regarding our aunt (father's sister) who had recently passed away. Well, imagine how my sister felt when she had to say, "Thank you -- but I didn't know she was gone!" My father wasn't always close to his family when he was alive... they had a hot and cold relationship, I guess you'd say. There were times where we visited them a lot and times where we didn't see any of them for stretches of time. However, he was always in contact with this particular sister. When my dad died, I called them to let them know and, even again when my mom died, I called just in case they wished to pay their respects in some manner. We found out a full two weeks after our aunt died that she was even gone. She had three daughters and not one of our cousins contacted us and we both have listed phone numbers. I guess they assumed that we would see the obit in the newspaper? I'm sorry but we don't make it a habit to read those every day... does anyone really DO that? In any case, we were denied the opportunity to attend her funeral and we feel that we look callous because we never sent a card or made a donation to their suggested charity either. Unfortunately, we're more angry than sad right now. We have decided to do nothing at this point since, if we say anything, it will probably come out bad. I almost sent a Christmas card to my aunt and uncle (as I've always done in the past) but, knowing she had been ill, I sort of wondered if it might be a bad idea. Now that I found out she died, three weeks before Christmas, I'm really glad I didn't send it!! It would have been pretty cruel to my uncle to have received such a thing. How would you handle this? Should we contact them anyway and let them know that we WOULD have been at the funeral, if someone had cared enough to tell us????
1 person likes this
1 response
@khalablue (309)
• Canada
16 Jan 07
thinkingoutloud, how did you handle this situation and what was the outcome? I would be interested in knowing what you did and how your relatives responded? Sometimes, especially in large families it turns out that no one particular person was in charge of contacting relatives, so everyone assumes that someone else took care of it.