All in the Family
Jul. 25th, 2004 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kyburgWell, hell. Sis is off steroids and has discovered I have a brain again.
That's better. I just don't trust it to last.
I'm not sure what displeases me more - the fact that I can't trust her moods to remain stable, or that I would have preferred a day like this a year ago - it would have been easier.
Still, not to quibble. It was a very good day.
However.
Only children who have to shoulder the entire burden of taking care of aging parents have a very different dynamic than those who come from families with siblings.
They don't have anyone to argue the details with them. Or question their judgement. Or just plain kibbitz.
I think my younger brother is going to have a epiphany soon about his life without our mother. Either that, or Sis is going to clock him and I'll push him in the pool.
I think it would be a very good thing if he took the house when Mom passes. I used to have right of first refusal, back in the day when I didn't own property of any kind - but that was a long time ago. He should have it now.
However, that means the house will be sold. Not for what is owed on it. For what the market value will be, likely to settle any outstanding debt.
Mom spent her money on us; there is no life insurance or other assets. There have been two house fires that burnt that house to the ground - there have been two burglaries that cleaned out the place. There is very little left. Mom is spending everything coming in - she's signed her Medicare over to an HMO; she juggles her prescription spending (have to start sending her some cash to make that easier...somehow) just to keep things refilled on time - the good news is, she appears to be healthy and is happy.
He doesn't seem to get it. He won't be paying off what's owed on it. It will be as if he bought a house himself, from the start. It'll just be the house he's living in now. And likely, will be more expensive than what's paid on it right now.
Welcome to Real Life. No, that doesn't mean you can keep buying new cars and making payments like you do right now - you get to drive cars until they drop like I do. And no, maybe the insurance won't be afforable anymore because you're driving the muscle car from H-ee-double toothpicks. You might have to get something nobody wants, like me. That's how you do it, toots.
He does a wonderful job of looking after Mom. That's why I think he should have a reasonable chance at getting the house. It's just not going to drop in his lap like he thinks it could.
However, if the house doesn't have to be sold to settle debt, I'm fine with letting him have it. It's the wife of my other brother I have to worry about - because she'll want to house sold and the proceeds split. Just because.
Oh hell no.
I thank my mother for thinking of these things - and making plans. And putting it very clearly who is getting what - so help me, she plans to mark everything and make lists - so I have no worries on that front.
When I lose my mother, I will lose my mother.
I don't expect to gain a single thing from it. So help me, it galls that anyone would think that I should -
VERY tired. Sis has a lovely pool in her backyard. Very nice. She can have the expense and upkeep - I want a furo. That will satisfy my need for large bodies of water in my home.
And that's far, far into the future as far as I can tell.
Sleep now. Nicely toasted.
That's better. I just don't trust it to last.
I'm not sure what displeases me more - the fact that I can't trust her moods to remain stable, or that I would have preferred a day like this a year ago - it would have been easier.
Still, not to quibble. It was a very good day.
However.
Only children who have to shoulder the entire burden of taking care of aging parents have a very different dynamic than those who come from families with siblings.
They don't have anyone to argue the details with them. Or question their judgement. Or just plain kibbitz.
I think my younger brother is going to have a epiphany soon about his life without our mother. Either that, or Sis is going to clock him and I'll push him in the pool.
I think it would be a very good thing if he took the house when Mom passes. I used to have right of first refusal, back in the day when I didn't own property of any kind - but that was a long time ago. He should have it now.
However, that means the house will be sold. Not for what is owed on it. For what the market value will be, likely to settle any outstanding debt.
Mom spent her money on us; there is no life insurance or other assets. There have been two house fires that burnt that house to the ground - there have been two burglaries that cleaned out the place. There is very little left. Mom is spending everything coming in - she's signed her Medicare over to an HMO; she juggles her prescription spending (have to start sending her some cash to make that easier...somehow) just to keep things refilled on time - the good news is, she appears to be healthy and is happy.
He doesn't seem to get it. He won't be paying off what's owed on it. It will be as if he bought a house himself, from the start. It'll just be the house he's living in now. And likely, will be more expensive than what's paid on it right now.
Welcome to Real Life. No, that doesn't mean you can keep buying new cars and making payments like you do right now - you get to drive cars until they drop like I do. And no, maybe the insurance won't be afforable anymore because you're driving the muscle car from H-ee-double toothpicks. You might have to get something nobody wants, like me. That's how you do it, toots.
He does a wonderful job of looking after Mom. That's why I think he should have a reasonable chance at getting the house. It's just not going to drop in his lap like he thinks it could.
However, if the house doesn't have to be sold to settle debt, I'm fine with letting him have it. It's the wife of my other brother I have to worry about - because she'll want to house sold and the proceeds split. Just because.
Oh hell no.
I thank my mother for thinking of these things - and making plans. And putting it very clearly who is getting what - so help me, she plans to mark everything and make lists - so I have no worries on that front.
When I lose my mother, I will lose my mother.
I don't expect to gain a single thing from it. So help me, it galls that anyone would think that I should -
VERY tired. Sis has a lovely pool in her backyard. Very nice. She can have the expense and upkeep - I want a furo. That will satisfy my need for large bodies of water in my home.
And that's far, far into the future as far as I can tell.
Sleep now. Nicely toasted.
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no subject
Date: 2004-07-25 11:30 pm (UTC)I'm inclined to think that in-laws shouldn't have a damn say in the process unless the deceased said they should. (Sure, if your daughter-in-law is an estate lawyer and you trust er more than your own flesh - but put it in writing!)
And go your mom for sorting stuff out ahead of time. It's a brave and wonderful thing to do; the last thing you can do for your family, really, and one of the best. That and prepay the funerary arrangements.
It worries me how many people in your bracket are looking at supporting their parents somehow. One of the reasons I feel so damn rotten about letting my mom send me any financial support (and didn't ask until it got to the point of realizing public assistance would put us on the street) is that I know she's just upped her "allowance" to her mom. Who had the consarned nerve to apologize to her descendants for not leaving them much inheritance after the stock crash bit her savings and she spent what she had on living expenses. I think we've convinced her we'd rather have a grandma than money. And I know that Mom's siblings chip in where they can, but they don't have the resources that my folks do.
But there's my folks, in their 65s and both of them still working at least part-time, more if they can get it, partly to support Grandma and partly to support me. (Damnit, I should be supporting them!) I know Mom and Dad mostly have the finances under good control and their retirement is taken care of and all that, but damnit. (And at least I don't haev other siblings who need supporting. Then I'd really feel like a waste of life.) And thank goodness they're both semi-healthy. Mom's short a few less-necessary organs and Dad's half-blind, but hey.
And then there's my darling's parents, who seem to have done a great job of setting up their inheritance and all that (said inheritance contains a swath of land that will probably be an expensive suburb in five years, purchased as an investment), but when I asked him to ask them to help us through a tight spot - they read him such a lecture about looking harder for work that I wanted to spit in their eye. Maybe you should've stayed in college son, and get a haircut. Verbatim. If I ever have the money, I may send it back to them just to spit in their eye. But I can't see ever having money to burn like that. And it took months before their family was on speaking terms just from that first incident.
Good thing I'm not planning on having kids unless things change drastically. Damned if I'm raising a kid on public assistance. And doubly damned if said kid ended up supporting me.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-25 11:33 pm (UTC)I may build one here someday.
You're very fortunate that your mother is sensible and planning, and writing down who gets what. My own mother has said she will leave it to us to work it out. I dread this.
Luckily, Mom's healthy and will hopefully have many years of life left to enjoy.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-26 06:10 am (UTC)I don't need it. When I did, there wasn't any to give me and I had to make do. Giving me anything now won't touch those times - and it would be stupid for me to accept it under those circumstances.
I'm not owed anything.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-26 06:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-26 07:31 am (UTC)The house... Determine the selling price. How much goes to the mother's debts, how much is left over and thus gets split however many ways. Then make sure to sell the house to the brother for the selling price, minus his share. That way it is atleast a less expensive house and won't be so hard on him.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-26 04:45 pm (UTC)I really don't know what Mom wants for funeral arrangments, though. Cliff was cremated and got a tupperware box inside a cardboard one - and that was fine.