Posted by miss fix it on October 5, 2010, at 0:19:28
In reply to Re: Grief and Greed what it does to some people, posted by calamityjane on September 30, 2008, at 0:23:03
I was the primmary care giver for my dad who passed away from colon cancer. The doctors did the surgery on him and he was given a month to live at the most, since the cancer had already spread to various organs. I tried to get him placed in a hospice house, family would not accept the fact that he was dying. They instead wanted to pretend nothing was wrong, I had asked for help with his care from the family, they flat out refused. To top it off when my dad had a relapse due to dehrydation and went in to the emergency department, family asked why they was not contacted immediate and wasn't told about the seriousness of his condition. I am thinking to myself you have got to be kidding. I was finally able to get my dad placed into the hospice house. Luckily the hospice house was part of the services at the hospital where I work at, so they let me sign the paperwork, even though my sister had durable power of attorney for health care. I knew if he was already placed, she would not pull him out of hospice. But if the decision was up to her, she would not go along with it. Until the very end both my brother and sister was in denial. The night that my dad passed away I was on the phone calling family, it is hard to leave the news on an answering machine. I am able to get a hold of my brother and sister. I could not get a hold of my brother's daughter, I knew that she would want to know as soon as possible. So I called her in the morning at 7. Could get in touch with her, so finally had to leave a message.
I had also called my best friend at 3 a.m. and he was very supportive. I would not have gotten through the whole grief process without him. My fammily starts verbally abusing me the day after the funeral service, telling me that I did nothing to take care of my dad. They didn't understand when a person is getting ready to die, that the body starts shutting down, the first stage is lack of appeptiet. Before my dad passed away he gathered My sister was the executor of the will, so she also had a copy of the will. She told me that Dad should have left the brokerage firm account to her instead of me. I was the primary care giver of my dad and my mom who had passed away 13 years earlier. In either case did the family offer any help in their care, or came to visit to offer support. What is ashame they only lived one hour away. My dad had always had me as the co-owner of the brokerage account since my mother had passed away. He had changed brokerage firms a few times, and he always keep the same pattern. My dad needed the co-owner to sign the paperwork, I was a natural choice, since I was always there for him. Besides my brother and sister both own there own house. My dad figured that the proceeds would help me buy a house. The family thinks that I am greedy since I did not split the proceeeds of the brokerage firm with them. They were so greedy my dad passed awawy on Oct 8,2009 they told me that I had to be out of his house by Nov 1. This was the house that I had stayed in with him to take care of him during his illness. My family also wanted to control my life, so they got me out of the house to go look at an apartment that they had already pickup out, so that my sister could be at the house without me there, she ended up going through the whole house and taking everything of value, and not letting me know. When the estated was being closed she sent me an accounting and she even had the nerve to charge me rent for living in the house for a month after my dad passed away. While I was living in the house, they literay gutted the house and took everything out of the house in two weeks. So by November 1, no heat, no electric, no furniture, etc. So I was able to close on the purchase of a town house on December 14. I had to get an attorney to find out why she was charging me rent (an outraceous amount) since she would not return phone calls or emails. She responded with the statement that "I impeeded the sale of the house, I was not cooperative". They listed the house on December 1 and they had a contract on the house on December 15. She would not budge on the rent issue. I could have fought her on the rent and probably would have won, but the stress was creating health problems. On top of this my brother was calling my cell phone at all hours of the day and night non-stop for 3 weeks, and just hang up, would not say anything. To keep my saneity I signed off on the paperwork to close the estate. Since then I have changed my cell number and the family does not have it. I have tried to fix things with them on a few instances. There response was that I should split my share of the inheritance with them. Doesn't that beat all, we all each got a 1/3 from the sale of the house, various pension plans, ira accounts, savings/checking accounts. Now they want me to give them more money. That is a crying shame. I told them that I will not talk about money, they need to repair the family relationships and not begging me for more money. What also gets me is that my brother and sister are upper middle class, both have a family, house, have top of the line cars, kids goes to private schools, their income is around 150K or more. Then you have me who just brought a house, working on furnishing the house, and just making a little over 45K. They are greety down to the last bone. I am sure that everyone has heard the old saying "keeping up with the jones'". Well my brother and sister are the "jones'". I have enought sense to realized that friendship and happiness is more important than money. I am so lucky to have a very good friend that I can talk to and he knows what I am going through. He had to cut family members out of his life. Thanks for listening. I hope that this helps other people out there to know that your family is not the only crazy family that is obssessed and greedy when it comes to money. May you all find strength throug God's love and support from very close and caring friends.
poster:miss fix it
thread:964731
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20100907/msgs/964731.html