A Question of Propriety

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A week ago my mother in law passed away. The hubs and I went to Alberta immediately to see to the arrangements and get a date for the service. My MIL wanted to be cremated and her ashes buried with her mother back in Ontario. The hubs and I will take them there next summer and have a small service at the graveside with her relatives that live there and couldn't make it to Alberta. My MIL had seven children. My hubs is the oldest, and it fell to him and I to take care of her affairs and arrange the service. We had had many discussions with Mum about her wishes when the time came. Now, my hubs family is literally a horror show. Most of my hubs brothers and sisters haven't talked to him or each other for years. Having them all together in the same house with various children was a zoo worthy of a coverage charge to witness! One of the brothers has a 9 year old son. He is cute, immature and terribly spoiled. His father dotes on him to the point of it being unhealthy. I witnessed a lot of interaction between them, and I know in my bones that poor child is going to end up one messed up adult. My tongue has holes in it from biting it so often and so hard not to say anything. My brother in law took me aside at one point (he hasn't spoken to my hubs in 20 years) and told me that his 9 year old son wanted some of Grandma's ashes to keep in a baby food jar to be buried with him when his time came, like in about 60 years or so! ........????????? WHAT? I said I would talk to my hubs about it. Well apparently the word got around and before we knew it, all the siblings wanted a 'piece of Grandma'. My MIL had been very clear that she didn't want her ashes 'parceled out like a bag of candy'. She KNEW her family! After much discussion, the hubs and I told everyone, that in keeping with Mum's wishes, we could not give them any of her ashes. The 9 year threw a fit .... literally! Mum's good china ended up in pieces all over the floor! The siblings started yelling at each other and my hubs, beer fueled tempers flared and in the middle of the melee, the hubs and I slipped away and took refuge in Tim Horton's. We also checked into a motel... The day of the service, which was actually just a private viewing in a small room as Mum didn't want a full fledged funeral (she knew my hubs and I would be the ones paying for it and the others wouldn't contribute a thing, not even flowers, so I believe she was trying to keep the cost down for the hubs and I) all the family showed up. The oldest daughter and her son took pictures of themselves grinning like fools, next to the casket with Mum in the pic, with their cell phones. The youngest daughter's boyfriend was not allowed into the funeral home as per Mum's wishes (they hated each other, but that's another saga!) and so the youngest daughter left with him and then sent someone to the funeral parlor right away to take Mum's flowers off the coffin that the hubs and I had paid for! I soon put a stop to that!!! The father of the nine year old FORCED his son to enter the viewing room and look at his Grandmother, while telling him that the ashes he wanted would come from the burning of the coffin in a huge furnace. The kid asked what would happen to Grandma, and his father told him that Grandma would be burned up inside the coffin. The poor child started screaming and crying and fighting to get out of his father arms and away from the coffin. It was horrible to watch and I finally stepped in and dragged the kid out of his father's arms and took him outside and calmed him down. The child refused to go back into the funeral home and I had to get his father to take him back to the house. His father accused ME of spoiling him by taking him out of the viewing room!! He said the kid should have been forced to stay and take it like a man! Told you this family was a horror show........ My questions are this: Should children under the age of 12 be allowed, let alone forced to view their deceased relatives in their caskets? Should they be allowed to have some of the ashes for themselves to be 'kept' for their own eventual interment? Is is appropriate for the family members to demand that the deceased ashes be parceled out them no matter how the deceased felt about it? And it needs to be stated, that in this case, NONE of Mum's kids even intended to come for the service, except for my hubs and the brother who had been living with Mum for the last 3 years, until they all learned that the will wasn't valid and therefore they knew they could take whatever they wanted from Mum's house without legal reprisal! In the past week I have received several emails from these relatives calling myself and my hubs cowards for leaving the house and 'avoiding them', for not doing what THEY wanted with Mum's remains, and been lambasted right and left for the way we handled things. Oh, and made fun of because we don't drink and therefore didn't 'get into the spirit of things'!!! Mum didn't drink either and she would have been appalled at the amount of alcohol consumed and the resulting trashing and pillaging of her home and meager belongings. Were the hubs and I wrong? I think not, but at this point, I don't trust my own judgement anymore..........