N
Number1Grandson
Guest
Well, when my grandmother took away the CD’s from me, leaving me flat broke, I was devastated. Other than killing me outright, I could not imagine a more perverse “reward” for all that I had done for her and for her daughter.
I immediately drove out to see my sister to talk things over. Her response was, “It’s her money.” HER MONEY! Yes, it was my grandmother’s money. But what about MY LIFE, and MY TIME? I couldn’t take that back, could I? This was a barter agreement where one party collected in advance and then reneged on the deal. It is beyond any possible dispute that if my mother and I had not worked as nursing home attendants those 11 years, my grandmother would have been broke. There would have been no CD’s at all for the other grandchildren. From an honest, ethical perspective they should be thanking me for their inheritances.
The contradiction of my sister’s position was amazing. She knew all along that Grandma was abusive to my mother. She could have done - at least fractionally - what I did, and come over once in a while to ease the tension. Maybe play cards, watch a movie with Grandma, give her dog a bath, take her shopping, family stuff. But her priority was her own life and she kept her participation with us to a bare minimum. And yet my sister had no problem whatsoever cashing in the CD’s for herself that were “HER MONEY”.
While I was at my sister’s, I called my female cousin (FC) who was always my grandmother’s favorite. She has a nice job with a major bank and makes a good living. She surprised me by agreeing that what Grandma did to me was wrong, and that she was in favor of settling things fairly at some point in the future. She said that what I do for Grandma is a “job” and she thanked God that I was in a position to do it. As for the prospect of me continuing to take care of Grandma on my own, she advised, “You need to think about what is best for you!” And finally, she said that she absolutely would not take care of Grandma herself because, “My job is too important to me. I’ve worked too hard to get where I am.” Therefore, if I really would not continue taking care of Grandma, then she would have to place her into assisted living.
So that clearly defines Grandma’s options as of 5 years ago: it was either live with me - the former #1 Grandson - or assisted living / nursing home.
Well, obviously I chose to take care of her. She had promised to leave me what she had if I promised to take care of her “to the end”. Since she had just given the other grandchildren their CD’s, apparently “finalizing” that end, I thought I could trust her. She did seem to appreciate all that I did for her.
At first, when her monthly bank statements would come in, she would say, “Let’s see how OUR money is doing.” Considering what she had done to me earlier, it was good to hear that acknowledgement.
However, since she was “leaving me everything” (considerably less than $100k, BTW) she felt entitled to boss me around like a child and felt that she owned my entire life. She sometimes even speaks to me as if I were a servant, with an, “I’ll have the roast pork…” or “Bring me the pillow” style of address. Whenever she wants anything, she beeps the intercom, but if I don’t respond instantly, she starts clanging her bell, or banging her cane furiously against the wall. If I’m not there within seconds, she demands an explanation. As my sister puts it, “Still treats you like s…”.
Call me a wuss, but if I were to try to correct her, she would just start crying (fake tears, believe me), threatening to “take pills” or maybe even call the police. But don’t worry about her doing any of that, since at this point I wouldn’t dream of upsetting her.
Now, if anyone has read this far, you’ve already guessed that my grandmother quickly reestablished the same disinheritance threat that she had used continually with my mother.
Ok, at first I did not know what to do. I wanted to take care of my grandmother but also save our family house. (My game plan with the house is that when my caregiving days are over I will return there and have one or two house-mates, and work 2 jobs for as long as it takes to climb out from under.)
Because of the remortgaging, even renting out the house required that I must work to cover all expenses. But my grandmother would not allow me to leave the house, except for very brief periods on rare occasions, so I was basically trapped. Well, I fell into a temporizing loop where I just took care of my grandmother, did the best I could with my landlord duties, and worked on my programming. I fell behind on property taxes and started to incur credit card debt.
Finally, I knew that I had to do something, no matter what the consequences with Grandma, so I took the first job that I could find. That turned out to be office manager for a small landscaping company. Considerably beneath my hotel management days but it gave me a little bit of financial credibility, so that at the end of one year I was just barely able to get a more reasonable adjustable rate mortgage.
There were a couple of key points about my job. First, my boss really appreciated what I had to offer, and after being there only 2 months I received the same nice Christmas bonus as his best longtime employees. Second, he told people that it was the first time in his life that he had an employee smarter than himself. He respected my talents and we were even going to set up an irrigation design partnership separate from his company. This was based on his confidence that I would be able to quickly master AutoCad - at least with respect to landscaping and irrigation.
I immediately drove out to see my sister to talk things over. Her response was, “It’s her money.” HER MONEY! Yes, it was my grandmother’s money. But what about MY LIFE, and MY TIME? I couldn’t take that back, could I? This was a barter agreement where one party collected in advance and then reneged on the deal. It is beyond any possible dispute that if my mother and I had not worked as nursing home attendants those 11 years, my grandmother would have been broke. There would have been no CD’s at all for the other grandchildren. From an honest, ethical perspective they should be thanking me for their inheritances.
The contradiction of my sister’s position was amazing. She knew all along that Grandma was abusive to my mother. She could have done - at least fractionally - what I did, and come over once in a while to ease the tension. Maybe play cards, watch a movie with Grandma, give her dog a bath, take her shopping, family stuff. But her priority was her own life and she kept her participation with us to a bare minimum. And yet my sister had no problem whatsoever cashing in the CD’s for herself that were “HER MONEY”.
While I was at my sister’s, I called my female cousin (FC) who was always my grandmother’s favorite. She has a nice job with a major bank and makes a good living. She surprised me by agreeing that what Grandma did to me was wrong, and that she was in favor of settling things fairly at some point in the future. She said that what I do for Grandma is a “job” and she thanked God that I was in a position to do it. As for the prospect of me continuing to take care of Grandma on my own, she advised, “You need to think about what is best for you!” And finally, she said that she absolutely would not take care of Grandma herself because, “My job is too important to me. I’ve worked too hard to get where I am.” Therefore, if I really would not continue taking care of Grandma, then she would have to place her into assisted living.
So that clearly defines Grandma’s options as of 5 years ago: it was either live with me - the former #1 Grandson - or assisted living / nursing home.
Well, obviously I chose to take care of her. She had promised to leave me what she had if I promised to take care of her “to the end”. Since she had just given the other grandchildren their CD’s, apparently “finalizing” that end, I thought I could trust her. She did seem to appreciate all that I did for her.
At first, when her monthly bank statements would come in, she would say, “Let’s see how OUR money is doing.” Considering what she had done to me earlier, it was good to hear that acknowledgement.
However, since she was “leaving me everything” (considerably less than $100k, BTW) she felt entitled to boss me around like a child and felt that she owned my entire life. She sometimes even speaks to me as if I were a servant, with an, “I’ll have the roast pork…” or “Bring me the pillow” style of address. Whenever she wants anything, she beeps the intercom, but if I don’t respond instantly, she starts clanging her bell, or banging her cane furiously against the wall. If I’m not there within seconds, she demands an explanation. As my sister puts it, “Still treats you like s…”.
Call me a wuss, but if I were to try to correct her, she would just start crying (fake tears, believe me), threatening to “take pills” or maybe even call the police. But don’t worry about her doing any of that, since at this point I wouldn’t dream of upsetting her.
Now, if anyone has read this far, you’ve already guessed that my grandmother quickly reestablished the same disinheritance threat that she had used continually with my mother.
Ok, at first I did not know what to do. I wanted to take care of my grandmother but also save our family house. (My game plan with the house is that when my caregiving days are over I will return there and have one or two house-mates, and work 2 jobs for as long as it takes to climb out from under.)
Because of the remortgaging, even renting out the house required that I must work to cover all expenses. But my grandmother would not allow me to leave the house, except for very brief periods on rare occasions, so I was basically trapped. Well, I fell into a temporizing loop where I just took care of my grandmother, did the best I could with my landlord duties, and worked on my programming. I fell behind on property taxes and started to incur credit card debt.
Finally, I knew that I had to do something, no matter what the consequences with Grandma, so I took the first job that I could find. That turned out to be office manager for a small landscaping company. Considerably beneath my hotel management days but it gave me a little bit of financial credibility, so that at the end of one year I was just barely able to get a more reasonable adjustable rate mortgage.
There were a couple of key points about my job. First, my boss really appreciated what I had to offer, and after being there only 2 months I received the same nice Christmas bonus as his best longtime employees. Second, he told people that it was the first time in his life that he had an employee smarter than himself. He respected my talents and we were even going to set up an irrigation design partnership separate from his company. This was based on his confidence that I would be able to quickly master AutoCad - at least with respect to landscaping and irrigation.
