My Nmom And Her Family Ruined My Brother's Funeral

My Narcissist Mother and I have been limited contact for almost a year. After she attempted and failed to manipulate my fiancee and I into lying about her adultery, I cut her out of my life almost completely and had finally been able to get on with my life.

Until December 26th, 2015, when my 22 year old younger brother died in a tragic car accident.

Naturally, my mother and the rest of her horrible family co-opted my brother's death and made it all about my mother. He's been elevated to the position of Perfect Dead Golden Child, which would disgust him, I'm sure. I wish I could say I was shocked or surprised by their actions, but I wasn't and neither was anybody else. Just angry and disappointed.

Because my brother was unmarried and without children, my parents had to plan the funeral together. And wow, was that a horrible process. I was also heavily involved, mostly as a buffer between my parents because they've been divorced for over 10 years and hate each other with a passion. My mother insisted on giving my atheist brother a Catholic funeral, insisted that he was a secret Catholic, and did the Rosary right in the middle of the visitation instead of at the end (which is traditional), which alienated quite a few friends and family.

However, because of that we were able to get her to agree to burying my brother in the same cemetery as our paternal family, which is what my brother would have wanted. She also tried to have only her family members read scripture or participate in the funeral (which is RIDICULOUS because he barely knew any of them), but I put my foot down and with the help of the priest, we were able to force her into letting some of our family members do readings and prayers. I sang. Throughout the entire funeral and visitation, my mother didn't shed a single tear. She barely spoke to me, especially after I refused to kneel during the service (I have joint problems and I'm NOT A CATHOLIC so why would I participate in prayers for my atheist brother???), her new boyfriend glared at my fiancee the entire time, and only 2 people from her family, my uncle's new wife and a very distant cousin who mistook me for someone else, even spoke to me. My maternal family STILL hasn't paid for their half (though they signed a contract so they can't try to get us to pay it), they sent only 2 tiny cheap flower arrangements (compared to the 10 or so arrangements from my father and our friends and coworkers), and didn't pay for ANY of the catholic funeral. THE CATHOLIC FUNERAL THEY INSISTED ON.

To top it all off, they stole all the sympathy cards, including one from my cousins that had quite a bit of cash in it, tried to take our flowers, and babysat the casket so everyone else felt extremely uncomfortable. At the luncheon after the funeral, my maternal aunt started stealing photos from the photo boards, made a huge scene and screamed at my father, PHYSICALLY ASSAULTED MY COUSIN, who got fed up and punched her in the face, and then they all ran before the cops got there.

So, all in all, it was an extremely stressful and traumatic experience. The shock and grief of losing my brother has been made a million times worse by the disaster they called a funeral.

What's the moral of the story?

If you're unmarried and childless, WRITE YOUR NARC PARENT OUT OF YOUR WILL, get a living will, do whatever you have to do, but don't let this stupid crap happen to you.