What’s Worth Fighting Over?

“It’s the principle of the thing.”  Well, actually, is it?  Yes, I’m dealing with death and its consequences.  Not for the dead person, obviously, but for those left behind.  Because, let’s face it, death might not be proud but it’s definitely messy.

Wills, bequests, the pain thereof: I bring this subject up because several people I know are dealing with this situation right now, and they aren’t happy about it.  Will the fabric of the family be ripped apart by a will?  It seems something like that all too often happens.  But is it really worth destroying whatever relationship to your family you still have over a grandfather clock, a brooch, Mom’s engagement ring.  Some people obviously think so.

I shall use my own varied experience to explore the issue.  Because why delve into someone else’s pain for this very short essay?  First, a happy story.  My grandfather died when I was fourteen.  He was always the most important person in my life.  What he left me, along with many happy memories, were stocks, bonds and cash.  Of course, to me at that age it all meant nothing.  Only later did I say to myself, my grandfather bought this stock for me.  For sentimental reasons I’m not selling.  May I say a wise choice, as he had phenomenal tastes in stocks and bonds.

Flash forward to year twenty-seven in my life.  Just about to have my second child, I really thought we needed a house.  My husband was teaching at a public university, and his salary was the only money he had.  Yes, I married very poor.  For a house, we needed a downpayment.  So I thought to myself, wasn’t there some money that my grandfather left me?  Five thousand, baby.  Enough for the downpayment on a house that cost $23,900.  (You can imagine how long ago this was.). So that was the start of our housing nest egg, as we moved six times.

Flash forward so many years to the death of my father.  I suppose I must explain something of the family dynamics.  Of the four children, I was always the odd one out, the family pariah.  I could never understand it, as I was a perfectly lovable, charming human being.  Anyway, to put it bluntly, my father hated me.  Not my imagination, since this has been confirmed by other siblings.  While most of his estate was in trust and went to my mother, he left bequests for each of his children.  Accompanied by rather nasty remarks, which makes me think, if there’s an afterlife, I hope I never have to see him again.

I wasn’t there when my father died, but my brother Joe was.  He and my father were not simpatico.  So even before I arrived, Joe had cleared out almost every bit of evidence that my father ever existed.  How very sad then that some of the items he disposed of had been left to other members of the family, like fishing tackle and stained glass.  Other possessions he disposed of willy-nilly, like giving the youngest grandson my father’s watch, disregarding the oldest grandson, mine.  I did ask him about that and he replied, “Well—“  Well, it’s a watch.  Screw it.  Not worth making a fuss over.  That was my sister’s and my attitude over the whole debacle, not that we still don’t discuss it occasionally.

When Joe died—in Spain!—no-one in the family wanted to handle his estate.  We were all he had, as he never married and there was no significant other.  So it was put into the hands of a lawyer; and, despite his having a will, who knows what happened to all of his collectibles, machinery, house even.  My brother was a hoarder.  Someone profited.  It wasn’t any of us.  But, so be it.  We all had our own lives and our own “fortunes.”

Next came my mother, left spouseless from the age of 77 to 102.  They weren’t particularly good years for her, though she soldiered on, going to the senior center, being upset when there weren’t four for canasta.  But then, a fall and a deterioration.

My mother wanted to stay in her house no matter what, allegedly.  The closest of her children geographically lived four and a half hours away.  That was my sister.  I’m not going to say she looted the house because that would be unkind and unsisterly.  I think rather we should just judge it as payment for having to be on call in order to rush up whenever there was an emergency.  Her hatred of the New Jersey Turnpike will remain a constant for the rest of her life.

When my mother finally died, a few months after her older son, we all trooped “home” for the graveside greeting.  My mother was cremated.  She wouldn’t have wanted that, but, hey, she was dead.

What were we to do with the four-bedroom house and everything in it?  Well, we took what we wanted, which really wasn’t much.  I got the photos of my beloved grandfather and grandmother, two pieces of glass and two paintings. Then, hey-ho, call in the junk man.  Even though there were so many pieces that weren’t junk at all, but who had the energy to drag them across the country in houses already full of our own crap?

Now there are three of us.  We remain a family on speaking terms because we’ve kept our mouths shut, figuring being a family in the best sense of the word means more than having material goods that we would forever look at and say, was it really worth it?

Of course, I’m telling no one that I found my mother’s wedding ring when certain other people who will remain nameless were looking for it.  Tough luck, darling sister.