Suspended Simcard

My mother passed away recently and we had an mtn contract which the one attached to my number was finished. So after my mom passing we went and gave mtn the documents and asked that my number still be operational given the fact that i still use that number and it as attached to a lot of things so changing it would be too much of a problem. The obvious thing to do was to make the sim card/contract prepaid but instead they blocked my sim card meaning i cant make and receive airtime calls nor can i get mobile data and on top of they want us to pay R2000 every month till next year November just for the sim card. We have sent a request to Mtn headquarters and its been over a month with no reply and a non functional number. Im truly so disappointed considering how much i love the mtn services and the network in general.