OC, that's the thing. My mother knew I was anxious about what would happen later...we live in a very expensive city and I'd been repeatedly laid off after I came to live with her (the dot-com bubble broke, I worked for 3 in a row) and she, being N, would use my fears to try to manipulate me and get extra attention and service. One week she'd be talking about how we had to sell the house when she passed away so my brother could have "his half"; another week it would be because "the neighbors expect a certain kind of taste, and you don't do things that way", another week she'd say, you know, maybe you're right, I could let you have the house and him the contents. I wrote her a furious anguished letter about it all asking her to just make a decision so I could plan for my own future, and that's the letter my brother stole from my computer. (in the same letter I railed at her for suggesting that she'd leave it to him and he would "always let me live here"--because the one thing I asked was that she not leave me under his thumb or entangled with him in any way, because of how he'd treated me as a child. But she kept trying to force us into some ongoing relationship that didn't exist. (Meanwhile, he's halfway across the country and never ever emailed me to say thank you for taking care of our parents for all these years, much less--how's it going? He'd call her periodically, never me. When he visited her, about once a year for long time, then in the last couple years he's all of a sudden here all the time...he smells inheritance.) Long story shorter, after her hospitalization for a mastectomy I was on the floor cleaning her feet or something, and she said, you know, after this I really do see that it is fair to let you have the house. And her will was changed, leaving me the house and him the contents. Before that hospitaliztion in 2005 she'd also decided to make me Power of Atty (financial and medical) with my daughter as backup. My D lived just 3 hours away and was home often...my brother was across the country and seldom here, so it made sense. For all their head-butting she and my D did love each other and were very close. My mother co-raised her.
Meanwhile, this year when my brother began his campaign in earnest, my mother got ahold of a bank notice from an overdraft I'd allowed to happen during one stretch when I was in major back pain and under a lot of stress at work. I let things pile up for a while, was disorganized and paper-sloppy. Being Mom, she sniifed drama, so instead of pointing it out to me, she called my brother. He said not a word to me but took notes, and when he arrived a month later demanded that I take him to the bank and add his name to our accounts. I said no, and that's when it started. Soon after, the letter from his first lawyer demanding a meeting. On advice of mine, I politely said, that won't be necessary (and meanwhile, I'd gotten the mistake sorted out). Another friend, who is a business mgr to some $$ people here...told me, you are her Power of Attorney. and making an honest mistake does not invalidate it. There is no law that you have to perform perfectly. But the episode was my brother's opportunity...a crack he could drive a wedge into. From then on, he was constantly in town, talking to MY NEIGHBORS hinting that I'm mismanaging my mother's money...suggesting to me that I "took" money from my mother for my D, when in fact my mother insisted on helping my D get to graduate school (the very last check she wrote in her own hand was a gift to help her move). She's helped my D for years, by choice. She loved her and wanted to.
So...it's all escalated from there. My brother is resentful that I have control, he's jealous that I inherit the largest portion of her estate, and he is likely finishing up sibling rivalry from childhood. He is also without conscience. And he wants money. OC, there is just the house, very little cash, and a few valuable objects. In total, the split between the house and contents value is probably 80-20 or 70-30. And I'm sure he doesn't like it.
I didn't much like working myself into poor health taking care of her for 10 years without a word or a penny from him, either.
But so it goes. You get the formula. Plug in drama-NMama, Nbrother, and me. But this time, I'll fight back as best I can, and then release the outcome. I am not going to be tormented. My life goes on and I won't give him my serenity.
love
Hops
