My family didn’t tell me that my sister had died

Dear Coleen

My sister died a few weeks ago and my family had no intention of telling me. I fell out with my mum and sister 18 months back because I wasn’t invited to my mum’s wedding when she remarried years ago, but my sister and new boyfriend were.

I found out by accident and was very upset about not being invited. I asked friends for advice and they all said my mum was wrong and I deserve an explanation and an apology.

I didn’t say anything until my sister caused a scene at Christmas when she had a go at me for being selfish, although she didn’t elaborate.

I brought it up again a couple of months later and my mother said it didn’t matter and it was in the past, and that I “needed help”. So, I decided to stop contacting her and my sister.

I had to find out via Facebook that my sister had passed away and I wasn’t invited to the funeral. I contacted my stepdad who confirmed it and said my sister didn’t want to see me. He blamed me for our fallout, but I don’t believe that’s true.

I’ve been told by a family friend my mum always favoured my sister and she was nasty to me as a child.

I feel so hurt that my family could be this wicked and I’m struggling to deal with it.

Coleen says

I’m sorry to hear about your sister. It must be very hard to know what to do with your grief, as you’ve been cut out of everything. I also understand your frustration and need for an explanation.

I think it would help you to write everything down in a letter and send it to your mother – explain how sad you feel about your sister and also that you still don’t understand why you were left out of the wedding, and were naturally hurt by it.

Once you’ve written it, whether you get a reply or not, at least you’ve got those feelings off your chest. The problem will be if you keep bottling up your emotions, because somewhere down the line they will all come spewing out.

It’s very hard when people fall out with you and you’ve no idea why – it’s happened to me in the past. You don’t even have the opportunity to defend yourself or make things right because you don’t know what you’ve done wrong.

You’ve had a lot of second-hand information, so I hope you get a response from your mum and can draw a line under it one way or another. If you want to, you can honour your sister’s memory in your own way – you don’t need a funeral to do that.

It might also help to get bereavement support or counselling – start by visiting cruse.org.uk.

We fell out, but I’m hurt they’ve been this wicked