No Time To Grieve/family After Mom's Estate

[donnasan]

I am so upset about mom's death last month, but I can't grieve with my family because their primary concern is how to get the most of her estate. I cry for hours at night when I'm alone because that's the only time I feel safe. During the day I feel like I'm swimming in a sea of sharks. I have only one brother. He has never seen me as a sister, but has only seen me as a barrier to getting all of the inheritance. I was the one who lived out of state and he lived nearer mom, but mom and I talked 3 times per week and visited and had a great relationship. In fact even though he lived next door I talked to her more than he did. I always told mom that my brother and his wife and family only fake it and act like "family" when I come to town, but mom didn't want to believe that. Now that she's gone he has told me the truth >>>that they really did fake it all those years and now that mom's gone they don't have to any more. Now that mom's gone I don't have a family. They are only out to get what they can from the estate and they have stayed in close contact with the financial issues all these years.............I have not. The problem is that I feel like I need to grieve at this time, but I also have to be smart and protect myself financially....this is so painful. I wonder how many other fmailies are this dysfuncional. I'm thankful to have a place to write this down and get it off my chest.

[pqgeorge]

Dear Donna:

Please let me offer you my condolences on the loss of your mother. Nothing hurts more than the loss of your parents. I lost my Dad 5 years ago to bone cancer. And lost my Mom six days ago, also due to cancer. Don't let the issues you have with your brother and sister-in-law destroy the memory of the special bonds you had (and still will have) with your Mom. The naysayers will have their time, soon enough. My situation is somewhat similar. I have a brother (out of 4 others) who along with his wife practically ignored my Mom for the past three years thanks mainly to the instigatory practices of his wife. The brother has been totally alienated from the rest of the family, thanks to her. I'm sure that they too will see dollar $igns from my Mom's estate. They treated her shamefully and avowed that "you'll never see your grandchildren again". She never did.

Ironically, it was the same brother who was at her bedside when she died last Monday. He will have to live with that fact that he waited until the last two days of her life to come and see her on her deathbed. In my opinion, his forgiveness for the way he treated my Mom over the past few years will have to come from another higher authority, other than me.

I was proud and thankful to have my Mom for 45 years and my Dad for 39 years. I know that someday, we'll all be together again.

God bless and please keep those bonds alive between you and your late Mother. Don't let some goldigger destroy that special gift you had with your precious Mom..

-Peter

[sd01]

Hi I am new to this forum ,but I read your message and it all sounds very familiar.Well here's is my story.My mother died October12th,2004 of several different illness's,my oldest brother had not come around all of us till,a couple days before momma died,he had been warned for a while by my brother next to him in age, that mom was not doing very good,but of course no response till the very end ,due to a very controlling wife of many years .Alot of heartache has been done to our family by him,his wife and 2 kids.The only reason I was ok with it of him and his 2 kids, coming to see her at the very end was for closesure for momma so she could go be with god,and for my father because he also wanted that for mom,but other then that I didn't care to see him,he said everything would change and we would be a family again ,but it never happened ,to tell you how bad he is, he can see me any where and not speak a single word to me,but you know what it doesn't bother me in the least because for many years I have looked at him as just another stranger in the world ,how can you lose something you have never had in the first place,I am the baby of the family and all I can remember were hurtful things him and his wife done to our whole family, so how can you truly have sencere feelings for someone like that ,it might sound mean but I just cannot except it in my life now,I have to forgive for the lord ,but I will never forget all the hurt my mother and father and us 4 other kids went through all these years due to such evil people like that.Then to top it all off my father also passes away 3 1/2 month's later on January 30th,2005,and from then my whole family except me and one of my sisters have gotten closer then we have ever been through all of this. My one good brother and me that has alway's been super close have fallen apart since all this,he is in charge of all the estate stuff and my mother and father thought he would be the one to be the fairest of all us kid and thats not been the case at all, so there has been alot of hurtfull things, said and done, due to all of this happening and I don't think our family will ever be the same, I was the child that was the care giver to my mother the last few years of her life and also helped my dad out alot to,but my father was in good health up until he died of we guess a massive heartattack,from the stress and such a broken heart from losing my mother of 48 years of marriage.So this has been very stressfull for my whole family to lose our parents in such a short time of one another.One of the biggest problems I have is, my brother I am closest to, wants my fathers old antique car and my sister and I does not want him to have it ,because he does not take care of his vehicles and my dad did not like him borrowing any of his cars, so that is why it is such a big issue with us,plus my father got that old car from my sisters ex husbands family, they had bought it new in England and had it shipped over here years later and my ex brother-in-law was going to buy it, but he instead let my father buy it, and him and my father had an agreement that when something happened to my father my ex-brother-in-law could buy it back,but my 2 brothers and other sister does not want that to happen, so there for my one brother wants it,but because of how he takes care of his cars my sister and I does not want to have it ,and as far as were concerned they can sell it to a stranger as long as they will take good care of it and hopefully put it in car show's as my mother and father alway's did,the car has alot of sentimental value to it,because my mother and father and the old car was once in a Michael Landon movie "Where Pigeons Go To Die" so it has alot of meaning to it.And as far as my oldest brother that never came around,I don't feel like he deserves anything out of the estate ,but I won't fight it because not long before my father died I had a talk with him about all this and he said that he wanted us all to have something,so there for I will just bite my tongue and let it be,because I would never go against what my mother and father wanted ,I have alway's been "Daddy's Little Girl" and thats the way it will alway's be . So if you have any suggestions or comments you would like to leave please feel free to do so,at this point I could use any help I can get,and it would be great to know Im not alone in the way I feel about all of this.Thank You for listening.SD

[Maylissa]

sd01/donnasan,

I'm very sorry you have to go through this kind of nonsense, too, after the loss of your parents. We could almost be sisters in our very similar situations! I know well the rage and frustration and tears this kind of thing brings up, when you're least prepared and able to deal with it, as my situation is very much the same....another dysfunctional family, as you were wondering about!

My Mother and I were the closest in our family of 5. I'm also the youngest, AND the only daughter. I had two brothers, but the eldest one died only 2 months after my Mother, and HE was the only one I was then talking to. We'd conversed for the 6 months our Mom was institutionalized, like yours, with several illnesses, although she was first hospitalized ( then taken to a rehab. center, where she ended up dying ) from a mild stroke, and then died from a massive one. My brother also died from the same kind of stroke ( in part, from all the stress involved ), but his was massive from the start and he never regained consciousness while on life-support. My father had severe dementia through the entire time ( and obviously for years before, though no one but my Mom knew ), sold their home without anyone knowing at first, and pretty much ALL of the contents, including personal and sentimental items like our family photos, were either burned by him or sold as well. My remaining brother ( the middle kid, handicapped....but ruthless ) lived only 5 minutes by car from where our Mother was, but refused to visit her in all of those 6 months. Like your situation, he was told by my other brother that she was dying, but he didn't care, and replied that he'd "get it all in the end anyway", so money was his only concern. I also don't live where the rest of them did/do, yet talked to my Mom the most. This self-serving brother tried to put our father in a retirement residence, as our father hadn't thought of where he'd even live after the house was sold ( thought he'd just move in with this brother, w/o asking ), but he was found lost, trying to find the senior's complex, so was taken to the hospital and shortly thereafter placed in a home, where he remains today. THEN this brother failed to sign the contract for the home, OR pay them monthly for his care and housing, so our father had to become a ward of the Province.....just as my Mom had had to become, but due to my father's imcompetencies. The Province, so far, hasn't done their job very well at all, and I suspect they never WILL find all of the money that our parents had ( not even the proceeds from the house sale, which was fairly substantial by itself ), which my brother has obviously hidden or used up for himself. I am left with the choice of doing nothing, or paying a lawyer to find out if there's any hope of getting any future inheritance back ( not likely, I suspect, especially after lawyer's fees factored in )....in other words, whether my brother will get away with his less-than-honourable tactics.

And this part of my story is really only the tip of the iceberg, as so much more happened both before and after my 2 losses. So, yes, there are SOME of us out here who know how debilitating these situations are! As for advise, I'm still trying to figure alot of that out myself, but HAVE focused more on trying to get help and support for ME before tackling the rest of it....sometimes that meant dealing with BOTH areas at the same time, sometimes not having the energy or will to do more than one.