Family Greed

“We don’t want you here”, they told me. But why? Why can’t I be at my own mother’s house helping to clean it out before it gets sold? My own brother thinks I’ll do something wrong? Why? None of this makes sense. None of it since the day my mother was found on the floor.

I remember that day so clearly. I showed up with the weekly groceries she asked me to get but she was a little off. She had a towel on her head as if she just got out of the shower but she hadn’t. The lights in the living room were all off and she kept asking me to fix them. When I found the chords, I realized she had unplugged everything. Why are these all unplugged I asked her. But she had no answer. Everything was unplugged; her lights, tv, radio, even her medical alert system. I made sure all of that was plugged in and working again. I wouldn’t want something to happen to her after I left; but it did.

The next time I came over, she was on the floor with her cell phone behind her and her hand on her medical alert necklace. It was so sad because you could tell she tried to use it. But she had unplugged everything again. The doctors said she had an infection and that may have caused her to not think clearly. But here we are 3 months later. My aunt, my brother, and me cleaning out her belongings and getting the house ready to be sold. My aunt had a copy of her will and it says that everything is going to her and she is the executor of the will. My aunt said a long time ago, my mom made this will so my aunt could take care of us if anything ever happened. Now that we are older, I’m surprised that she never changed her will. Now everything goes to my aunt and nothing to me or my brother. Which, honestly, is fine with me. I don’t want anything except to have my mother back. I know that can’t happen so I just have to accept this. But why can’t I even be in the house and help go through my mother’s life and celebrate memories of her with my family? I know I’m a sentimental person but I wouldn’t make things harder. I would do my best to help. But they told me to leave and I’m now not allowed back. I just can’t believe they don’t want me here.

Before I left the house for the last time, I had to at least grab 1 memento. Just something that I could keep to remind me of her. I paced back and forth, through each room just looking. Then I saw it. My first thought was to just grab it and run. But I didn’t want to be accused of taking things that weren’t mine. I asked my aunt, “Can I please have her journal?” My aunt grabbed it from my hands and said, “Absolutely NOT! Everything in this house belongs to me and is my responsibility. Just leave me be so I can do what I must.” I left...in tears.

I went next door to my best friend's house. We sat on the back porch and complained about my aunt and my brother until I just couldn’t talk about it anymore. At that moment, my aunt came outside. In her hand was the small black journal. She stopped and thumbed through the pages and shook it as if waiting for something to fall out. She tucked the little black book under her arms as she got into her car. As she drove away, I could see the book was in the driveway. “She dropped it!” I yelled. I ran over to get it. On the front cover was beautiful gold cursive lettering, “My Story for you”. Above this was a small picture of a calendar with the number 11 written in it. This was priceless. I hugged the book tightly and went home.

As soon as I got home I started reading it. I smiled and laughed at the stories she had written in her journal. I also cried for hours. I was so nice to read about my mothers stories, her feelings, and things she thought about. I couldn’t put it down until I finished reading. I never felt so close to my mother than I did at that moment. If I had known half of these things written in her journal, we could have been so much closer. We never really were that close. Sure I saw her all the time and we talked but we never really talked. It was always just a relationship like you would have with just an acquaintance. After reading this, I just wished we had been able to talk like this. I guess we never knew how to become friends. I wish we could have.

I finally went to sleep that night giving myself only about 2 hours before I had to wake up for work. Before my alarm even went off, I jumped out of bed in a panic. All I could think about was my mom. I don’t know if I can ever get over her being gone. As I turned on the light, I knocked over the journal. It fell on the ground opening to a random page in the middle. I realized that she had beautiful cursive handwriting. The way her letters flowed were just gorgeous. As I was admiring her elegant letters on those pages, I saw that every so often there were words not written in cursive. I don’t know how I didn’t notice last night. It was so clear now. Could there actually be a message in those words? I decided to write out the words and find out. “Cats like to read too. Especially in the garden. I love you. This is for you.” I’m just so excited that there really is a message. I love you too mom. In her garden, I know she has a few of those little animal lawn ornaments and gnomes. Before work, I went to her yard. I saw the figure of 2 cats on a bench reading a book. I’m going to put this on my window sill in my kitchen. This could be me and her together sharing her story and becoming best friends. Everything I always wanted; just a little too late.

When I got home after work, I placed the figurine on the window sill. I started crying. I got some strawberries out of the fridge and started washing them off. When I grabbed for the colander, I knocked over the figurine and it Fell to the ground cracking into pieces. This made me cry even louder letting out a loud bellow from deep inside. How can I be so clumsy? I got the dustpan and swept the pieces up. Mixed in with the broken pieces of plaster there was a small key with a circular tag attached. On the tag was printed the number 11. I immediately called my brother. This is it. Whatever this key unlocks is from mom to US. He came right over. We called every bank in the area hoping this would unlock an unknown safety deposit box. We had no luck. This must not be that kind of key. We decided to visit my aunt and have her help us. My brother told her the story about how I found the key. As he was talking, my brain was starting to put all these events together. Why would my mom have to hide this key for me? Was she keeping it from her sister? In her journal, she talked a little bit about how her sister was never really nice to her and that she felt her sister didn’t really care about her. She clearly was willing to take everything from me and my brother and not share any of it with us even though it was my mom's. Was my aunt willing to end a relationship with her only family left and keep the inheritance all to herself? My aunt then stood up and said she will find out what this key unlocks for us. My brother and I left her with the key. I felt it was a huge mistake to leave her with the key. I convinced my brother that we should watch my aunt and follow her. When she finally left her house she drove straight to a storage center. She got out of the car and walked down the rows to door #11. As she was opening the door, she must have heard us. She tried pulling the door back down but my brother grabbed her. I ran to open up the storage door. Inside was a desk with a small box on top. It was labeled, “To my 2 children”. Inside the box was a note from my mom in her beautiful handwriting. There were also two bank rolls of $10,000 each; one for me and one for my brother. Under the cash was an envelope labed Last Will and Testament. As my brother was restraining my aunt, she was screaming about how she gets everything inside the storage; everything is hers. It is just crazy that my aunt would act this way, I mean, I never even cared about the inheritance. If my aunt asked for something, I probably would have given it to her anyway. But greed; it really makes people not act like family.