Its probably already been said but your mother is allowed to get in touch with you on anything that counts as family business or an emergency and a death in the family clearly counts. You can actually complain to the elders about this and they will counsel your mother about it. I've heard of this being done before.
Maybe I'll complain to the elders about them not telling me stuff. If my nerves can handle it. My grandfather is a PO in his congregation -- not my mom's. perhaps I should call him. Or maybe the elder's in my mom's congregation. I do know that the CO told my parents to call me when my dad had a heart attack (again ... only after he was about to be released did they call me. I thought we got this telling me after the fact thing out of the way then but I guess not)
You're right, this was all about HER. The funeral is supposed to be about your Aunt and honouring her memory, not about your mom. I'm wondering if this funeral is going to be a JW Infomercial since the JW family members seem to have commandeered the proceedings. My guess is that it is, and that you were not informed sooner because they knew you would not allow her memory to be violated in that manner.
Not that my family actually told me anything about this but I looked up the obituary and it said that they had a service in her house and then a graveside after. I bet her children (non-jws also) would not let that happen.
However, remember that she is enslaved to a cult. Pray for strength to live a life of supernatural love and forgiveness, remembering that but for the grace of God, you too would see life through WT eyes. I am just concerned that if you cut off all contact with her, you may miss an opportunity to help her leave the cult, or plant some seeds of doubt when she is having questions...
This has made me grateful for God's love. It has also reminded me again of how happy I am to be out of that mess. I know that I want to say good ridance to all of them but in reality I don't think I ever will. Only for totally unselfish reasons will I still talk to her. If I was being as selfish as she is, I would just write her off. I know that I have to continue to show love and forgiveness.
Ya know, its really sad but I always loved this aunt and thought she was so sweet. We never talked to her though because she was not a JW. I tried to contact her after the DA to no avail. The address and ph. number I had for her were no longer any good. (and of course my family wouldn't give me any info because they didn't want her to find out what they were doing to me.) And now I have some regrets about how she was treated all of that time. Not personal regrets as much as that I hate that she also lost her family to this cult as well.
One good thing that has happened out of all of this is that I've tried to contact her children also to no avail. When I read the obituary, I found out that they both live in the SAME TOWN AS ME! How's that for a miracle! So maybe I can talk to them and connect to that part of my family. I think it would be good to talk to them since they at times talk to our family and maybe it'll help the news travel faster. And also it might enlighten them to what these people are really like. I lost 4 cousins to this mess -- it'll be great to gain two because of it. I did call them both and and left a message to offer my sympathy and appologize to them for not knowing about the funeral to attend. (I just told them that I didn't know about it until today or I would have went. I did not put any burden on them because loosing their mother is enough right now.)
Thanks to all for your kind words. I needed someone else to be angry with me and to understand. And thanks for the sympathy.