AITA: My brother laughed at my dead friend
Long story short, one of my best friends died due to medical malpraxis 6 months ago, at just 22. Grief has been appaling, but I've managed to somehow pull off my last year of uni. Graduation was very hard for me, because she too would be graduating by this time. I posted a story in IG to conmemorate her passing and to cherish my grad as if it where hers too. One of my older brothers called me within minutes, opening with "hey, saw your post. I called you to laugh about it". I hanged up, later called him to say how rude and insensitive he was. He excused himself, saying it was all a joke and that we were always fooling around, I said it didn't matter, the post wasn't precisely subtle about it being conmemorative (i posted it on the restricted friends-only story). He just said he hoped I got over "whatever was happening to me" so we could be go back to being fun and jokey. He's tried "contacting" (as in, sending silly photos of himself as if nothing or sending me texts like "Good luck in your exams!", "I hope you don't hate me anymore", "are you still mad") me over the last month after he saw I wasn't calling or messaging.
At this point, I think is clear he's the asshole. The cuestion is AITA for wanting to send him a text that I know for a FACT will hurt him very much/send him into a crisis? Well, and maybe put me in a bad place with my moher. She's always justified him and he's always evaded the consecuences to his actions, but I cannot just sit here letting this simmer inside me.
Thanks for the assist, at least I've gotten it off my chest
edit.: This is the message I came up with sending btw, I know it's very extra. Thanks deepl
[For some conext, he sent me a photo of him pouting with ;(( and then "Please don't hate me, are you even mad over this still??". At this point I wasn't even answering because he STILL hasn't said "I'm sorry for what I said, it was wrong" or anything close to an apology]
"I’ve already explained to you why what you did was hurtful and inappropriate. You didn’t just disrespect me, but the memory of my friend. Your response to my explanation was to downplay my feelings and feel sorry for yourself, hoping that ‘I’d get over it all’ so we could go back to being friendly as if nothing had happened.
If you still don’t understand, there’s nothing more I can do for you; the work of empathy, emotional responsibility and maturity is up to you. The fact that you’re asking me if I’m still angry just shows me that you’re not aware of the seriousness of the matter. It’s not something that’s happening to me, but something you’ve done. I’m not going to manage your emotions about this, especially when you seem incapable of taking responsibility for what you did. There are lines that, once crossed, cannot be crossed back, and the last thing I’m going to do is comfort you for having hurt me. Don’t mistake my responding to you or the passing of time for everything being fine, because you haven’t done anything to fix it.
Whenever you genuinely understand what you did and feel real remorse, you’ll know what to say and how to say it, not these ploys that prey on my empathy and good manners. No sad selfies, no trick questions, and no playing the victim. In the meantime, leave me in peace to finish the term, and if you want to say something meaningful to me, go ahead, but cut out the nonsense, which is precisely what got you into this mess."