It is okay a compulsory compensation?

[Archedreamer]

Hi everybody!

I wanna to ask you about something that concerns me:

My grandparents are prostrate. My grandfather suffered a stroke. My grandmother has contracted Alzheimer’s. My mom’s brother is a mafia man (but no money and no brain) so he fell over the dam. He has stolen most of the furniture of their house. It has become a grey home. He has also stolen many of their money.

We cannot make a police report. It is stronger than us. It is another thing that which makes me distress. My mother has agreed with him about the separation of property that my grandparents would not use never more. She, my brothers and me have received a flat on the seaside.

On that appartment I have found something that has really atracted me. It is an danish edition of the Eddas (a work that Norsemen have made which is similar to those works that Greeks have made - the Illiad and the Odisey). It is not as valuable in the common market but for someone like me - an historian - it is solid Gold.

It would be okey to take that book as a compulsory compensation for all that he has stolen? I know that he has gone tho the flat that we have now. My mother said that he has gone to take all that what was his, so she says “take it”. But I don’t want to commit a sin… if it is a sin.

To have stolen forniture of my grandparents’ house is not just a sin against them. It has been also a sin against my mother because there were many valuables - materially and also emotionally - which my mother would inherit after my grandparents’ death.

I wont’t have any problem If i must restore him the book. I don’t want to see him but I won’t deny a restoration if he asks for that… if I must do that.

I really thank you for using your time to speak me.
Gabriel

 

[midori]

Are these your maternal grandparents or paternal grandparents? Is your uncle related to them by blood or by marriage?

If possible, ask your grandparents for permission to take the book to remember them by.

If it’s not possible, ask your mother for permission to take the book as a memento of your grandparents, which it sounds like you’ve already done-- and received permission to do so.

The book has no relation to your uncle or his greediness at all, unless somehow your grandparents had promised it to him specifically. Think of the book in terms of a fond memento of relatives who won’t be with you much longer, rather than in terms of compensation for something or an object you somehow deserve.

 

[Archedreamer]

Are these your maternal grandparents or paternal grandparents? Is your uncle related to them by blood or by marriage?

If possible, ask your grandparents for permission to take the book to remember them by.

If it’s not possible, ask your mother for permission to take the book as a memento of your grandparents, which it sounds like you’ve already done-- and received permission to do so.

The book has no relation to your uncle or his greediness at all, unless somehow your grandparents had promised it to him specifically. Think of the book in terms of a fond memento of relatives who won’t be with you much longer, rather than in terms of compensation for something or an object you somehow deserve.

Ops! I have not been clear enough. This books is not property of my grandparents. I think that it must have been purchased in any strange bookstore by my uncle during his teenager years. He was an admirer of German nations (he was neo-nazi indeed. One of the objects leaved by him at the flat was a some kind of a nazi reproduction of ancient barbaric knight ). I think that the money for buy it has been given to him by my grandparents. But I don’t believe that fact has some importance.

PS: Those are my maternal grandparents. My uncle is related to them by blood, he is their son (I have said “my mother’s brother” to give strenght to the fact that we have not exactly a warm relantionship). (All this is code-satire, but it is not against you, and don’t take it as a justifying thing towards my desires).