The deadliest of all sins............greed
IMy grandparents had 5 girls and lived modestly. When my Mother divorced my biological father the four of us (my twin brother and our sister) went to live with them. Mother worked 3 jobs to support us and our grandparents raised us along with the begrudged help of our aunts. We heard it everyday, how we robbed our grandparents of their retirement years. We were small children that has no say in anything but felt guilty then for this horrible misdeed that we couldn't understand. It dosen't really matter in the message of this but our grandfather told us daily and his biological daughters that he loved us as much as he did them and "those precious children will be the ones to give us our last drink of water", we were and loved him deeply.
When they passed away my Mother continued to live in the house until she died, only a few years. later. On the eve of her death, it was an all out brawl over who got what and the sell of the house. I was trying to care for my Mother during her last painful days of cancer but all her sisters could think of was the money and the "things". They were scurring around like ants manipulating each other and trying to manipulate us by having pieces of paper shoved in my face to sign everything over. The will had already been made but they wanted to make double sure we got nothing and they got everything. All of them had been stealing objects over the years when they would come over for one of their daily visits. To their surprise, the three of us wanted absolutely nothing in the house or even our Mothers little percentage of the sale of the house.
I thought our family was close and loving, it was anything but. After my Mothers death, we split down the middle and have never been the same. There are no longer any gatherings, talking and every attempt has ended up in hurt feelings and someone having to "bring up the past". It has been 20 years and the greedy aunts have all died but two. They went through their money in weeks and the "things" are stored collecting dust.
Was it worth it for them? I wonder but am not interested enough to try and find out anymore. I work as a nurse in Hospice and try to keep families together in these critical times where everyone is fragile, angry and focusing on everything except the person that is dying and loss they are experiencing.
I wish families would focus on what matters, each other and their relationships. There is no object or amount of money that can replace what once was wonderful or thought to be wonderful.
This family is probably past any healing, our's certainly is but for those of you who have this to face, please remember it's the only family you will have and the lonliness is almost unbearable once they are gone. Hold on the each other and not "things". The money will be spent, the "things" will gather dust and hold no value over a human being you once loved and will miss. You will feel like your entire life was a lie, so get things settled before the death of parents, stay close and hold on to each other.
