Content Warning: Sexual Abuse
I open the mailbox to find a notice that I have to go get something at the post office. Hmmm, what the heck did I order? I don’t remember but that happens often enough. The next day I stop in after work. The person at the counter hands me an envelope and my eyes widen. I know immediately what it is. I asked him for it but I wasn’t sure he’d actually send it. The fact that he has so quickly tells me everything I need to know.
I walk to the car, toss it in, and text my friend of too many years to mention. She has known me since I was five years old and knows all of my history. I send her a picture of the envelope. Within 30 seconds my phone rings.
“Oh my gosh, he actually sent it?” she asks.
“Yup” I reply. I’m driving so I tell her I’ll call her back when I get home.
I walk in the door, dump my stuff, and sit down heavily on the couch. I stare at the envelope for a minute. I don’t really want to open it since I’m pretty sure I know what it’s going to mean. Thank god for my bestie who will hold my hand through the whole thing.
I call her back and gingerly open it. The first page or two are just legal background jargon. Then I flip the page to get to the important part. And there it is staring me in the face. My mother’s last vindictive, spiteful, hateful act towards me. A final fuck-you-oh-daughter-whom-I-despise from beyond the grave.
She has left the entire estate to my brother. The brother who she knew sexually abused me throughout my childhood and has done nothing to compensate me for it. The brother who has freeloaded off of my parents for his entire life, has never paid for any living expenses (not even a single electricity bill) in his entire 58 years, and thus has to have literally millions of his own in the bank. The brother who has filled the basement with porn magazines and posters of half-naked women.
I estimate that the estate is worth about two million dollars. The house is in a suburb of Toronto on a quiet street with an absolutely enormous lot. That, the fact that my parents lived extremely frugally, and that at the age of 80 they hadn’t even yet touched the principle in their RSP’s, leads me to be pretty sure about this figure.
The thing is, this is entirely my father’s accumulated wealth. Unfortunately he died first and put in no safeguards against this. He was a trusting soul and never would have believed that my mother, hateful as she is, would have done this. She in no way contributed financially to the estate and both she and my brother knew this. They also knew very well that my father would have wanted me to have half of it.
I am shocked but not surprised. Part of me knew it was going to turn out this way, but I guess there was still a part of me that held out hope for some shred of humanity in her. I hang up the phone and go about my business.
Then a few hours later I have a meltdown. It hits me hard how much my mother would have had to truly hate me in order to do this. There could not possibly have been even a shred of love for me in her heart. And that hurts. Until now I had believed that in some way she loved me but that maybe she just couldn’t express it. Now I know the truth.
I ugly cry with gut-wrenching sobs over this. I have long ago mourned the mother she couldn’t be, but now I mourn any semblance of love that may have existed in her for me.
I spend the next 24 hours or so feeling pretty shaky and vulnerable. Later I realize that the date the will has been signed is significant. My father died in January of 2017. At Easter of that year my mother asked me to come and see her. I was pretty much expecting that my father’s death might prompt this. We were going to Toronto anyway to see my cousins so I agreed to go up to the house to see her.
When I arrived she wouldn’t even speak to me and when she finally opened her mouth all she did was attack everyone. She insulted my dad, attacked my partner, and then me. I just got up and left. I was left wondering what the purpose of the visit was in her head. Now I think I know. The will was signed two weeks before that. She had already cut me out of any inheritance. So the only possible purpose of that visit was either to rub my face in it or to use it as leverage to get what she really wanted, which was to have a relationship with my children.
My mother had always had a romanticized idea of being a grandmother. What she couldn’t seem to comprehend was that she had to have a relationship with me before I would let her anywhere near my children, and that was not something she was capable of doing. It seems she was willing to try anything to get what she wanted, but I am guessing she lost her nerve that day at Easter and so just decided to spew vitriol in every direction.
I slowly digest this dawning realization of yet another level of hateful manipulation. It boggles the mind really. As a parent, I am quite frankly glad that I cannot wrap my brain around behaving like this no matter how hard I try.
Then another arrow hits its target between my eyes. My brother knew about the will when he decided to share his disapproval with me about not attending my mother’s funeral. He had the nerve to tell me he “didn’t agree with my opinions of mom” knowing very well that she had left everything to him. WTF?? Just how twisted are these two?
I let a few days go by. I tell my close friends that I intend to let myself be very angry for a short while and then I will let it go and move on. I know it will be hard, but I need to for my own sanity.
Finally I send my brother a message. I tell him that he knows very well that dad would have wanted me to have half of the estate. I remind him of the abuse he perpetrated upon me for years, and I actually list the heinous acts he committed so that he has to see them clearly stated. I remind him again that he has never financially compensated me in any way for the tens of thousands of dollars I have spent on therapy thanks to him.
Then I tell him he has a choice. He can either do the right thing or he can become my uncle. Ironically, my dad had a brother who did something very similar in terms of claiming his mom’s estate when she died. My brother at the time went on about what a loser our uncle was. And here he is doing exactly the same thing.
When my uncle pulled his stunt, my father told him to keep everything, rot with it, and never contact him again. He walked away from a ton of money and never looked back. So now I will channel my father and do the same. Could I use that money right now? Heck yeah. In the past year I separated from my partner, bought a new house, and am now a single self-employed parent carrying the weight of a mortgage and a household. In the past month my car has needed three thousand dollars worth of repairs. On top of it all inflation is killing us all.
But I will walk away from one million dollars because it’s not worth it. I would rather put my energy into leading a joyful life full of love. I will NOT spend my time being bitter and resentful. I will absolutely not let my hateful and vindictive mother steal my time away from my children. And miraculously I am able to do this. I literally lost only a couple of nights’ sleep over this whole thing.
I have made peace with the situation. If one day a bank draft appears in the mail then so be it. If it doesn’t then so be it. It is times like this when I realize how much true healing I have experienced.
The old me would have made herself physically ill over this. She would have been consumed by anger that would have permeated all of her relationships. She would have let her bitterness get in the way of loving her children.
The new me is good. I am, in fact, doing great. I even said to a friend that the three thousand dollars of car repairs are the universe reminding me that I can manage on my own no matter what. I have put my energy into meditation, letting my big emotions out rather than burying them, and reaching out to those I know love me unconditionally. I express gratitude that those are many.
I will go forward held in love and kindness. Bitterness and hate no longer hold any sway with me. Truly, they don’t. I can’t help but smile to see how far I have come. Money be damned. I’ve got so much more valuable and cherished assets.
