My brother’s Funeral

I'm sure your niece thinks she's putting her mum's needs first, but do have a word with her - like everyone else, I feel your sister should be told.
What if someone were to ring her up, & mention it in passing? Besides her grief, she'd also have to cope with the shock that family hadn't bothered to tell her.

Yes I've also been in this situation I felt that I couldn't tell my father that a nice friend had died and worse his favourite cousin .
I said that the friend had moved away to be with her daughter .
Avoiding telling him about the cousin was harder .
I said that she'd gone into care and had a lot of trouble communicating .
He believed it as she'd started getting extremely confused and her voice was thin .
I faked Christnas and birthday cards from her.
I faked calls to the home and sent our love .
Imagine my disquiet when another cousin told him that he was talking rubbish as Joan had passed two years earlier!
He'd actually guessed and told me that he always knew when I'd faked cards in the past - actually from his grandkids !

Bizarre.

Wisdom from butterandjam as usual

I’m very sorry to hear about your brother, and also the anguish this problem is causing you. Like others, I think that your sister should be told. It’s unthinkable that she might learn about your brother’s death from someone else. It may not be the shock that is anticipated if your sister has known about his illness and his situation for some considerable time. The only situation where I might view this differently is if your sister has quite advanced dementia, but I didn’t get that impression. My mum had advanced dementia. We found if we told her someone had died we had to do so repeatedly which was distressing for her. In the end we just avoided discussing the person who had died.

I would be devastated if someone kept this from me, even if they felt I wasn’t well enough to hear it. It’s patronising and deceitful. Please tell her.

Please tell her.
But tell her daughter that you are going to do it on (say) Wednesday if she doesn't do it before.

It is hard enough to be grieving your brother, without this extra dimension.
Hope you are able to 'get through ' to your niece about the importance of letting your sister know.
And hope it all works out soon.

So we had funeral couple of days ago and niece couldn't make it and she hasn't told her mom/my only sister...

The service was lovely and the eulogy and music but i felt completely numb..my sister and her children were mentioned which i felt was appropriate but now

have woken up in tears this morning and can't stop...

Oh Bea that is terrible, so sad.

Bea glad the funeral went as well as funerals go. Don't fight your tears you are grieving and if you don't let it out you will only hurt yourself. Grief effects you mentally but also physically. And grief is exhausting people don't realise that . I didn't until my husband died .

When you can thing of all the funny ,crazy things your brother did and it will make you smile . Think of all the things you shared growing up and the never ending love you have for him . He is still your brother and always will be. Bet he had a saying for every occasion. What would he say to you when you are feeling down and embrace that . 🌹

My condolences on the loss of your brother. This situation is making matters worse for you and stopping you grieving in the way you should be able to. I think simply, if you put yourself in her position, you will know that you would be deeply upset and offended at not being told at the same time as others. I think that if you were about to have a serious operation or such things, then there could be a case for witholding information for a short time, but other than that , I think it is very important that you are told as and when things happen, good or bad. We implicitly trust our families to keep us informed of things that happen in life. Once you find out that you have had important information withheld for even caring reasons, you would never feel safe or trust them again and could be constantly worrying about what you might or might not know. So do as you would be done by, and tell her. It will be sad news, but obviously not a total shock as she has known about his illness. Also you may be able to give solace to each other. It is YOUR brother and your niece cannot know about the bonds and connections that existed between you all. She is thinking very short term, but your sister has to know the news sometime and this would be the right way to both treat your sister and to respect the family ties between the two of you, without letting your niece possibly cause upset and hurt between you both. Perhaps after the funeral, you might be able to make a visit to your sister soon where you could get together and talk about old times with your brother and grieve together, which I personally feel would be comforting for you both. Hoping that you can resolve the situation in a way that allows you to feel less stressed and calmer

🙏for your replies.. am still a bit numb and sister still doesn’t know😢