My mother's estate... and other family matters
If 'Enabling' were an Olympic event, my mother would be a Gold medallist.
Just a bit of background - I'm the eldest of eight children; there are four boys and four girls. My father was an alcoholic who committed suicide in 1983, leaving piles of debts. One of my brothers lived with my mother for a while, his own alcoholism getting steadily worse and worse - until he finally tried to strangle her. Then the police became involved, and to this day there's an injunction against him coming within a mile of the house.
One of my other brothers (also an alcoholic and, at the time, heroin addict) had recently been released from jail. He got a job as a train driver, but lost it quite quickly when he drove the train through a red light and was found to have cocaine and alcohol in his blood. His wife then kicked him out - whereupon he moved in with my mother. To his credit, he did kick the heroin habit but the alcoholism continued unabated.
Recently, the subject of her will came up, for reasons I won't go into here, and it looked for a while as though she was intending to divide her estate equally between myself and my brothers and sisters... but then it transpired that she was actually intending to make the alcoholic brother who lives with her sole beneficiary.
It's her money, and she's entitled to dispose of it as she sees fit. I have to say, I was surprised when it looked as though she was going to divide her assets equally, as she has never shown any consistency of treatment towards her children. Surprised and delighted, especially given the circumstances of my father's death. It would somehow have erased all the pain and trauma of the past.
Of course, dealing with the effects of the suicide is something which we each have to do for ourselves, and I'd say it took 30 years before I'd really say I was over it. Living with the fact that a final message from a parent was: "Get lost - you mean nothing to me!" is part of my history and my family's history - and has been a huge incentive to look within for validation and self-respect.
I surprised myself with the realisation of how much it would have meant. I've come to terms with the message from my father, but it would have been nice if an equivalent message wasn't going to be left by my mother as well.
The second issue, of course, is that access to large amounts of money is likely to hasten my brother's alcoholism and send him to an early grave.
My instinct is just to walk away and leave them to it. My non-alcoholic siblings, though, are understandably distraught, and one of my sisters has said that she is writing to my mother just to register her feelings - and asked me to do likewise. None of the other siblings is involved in anything like Alanon, and hadn't really appreciated the potential impact on my brother's alcoholism. Interestingly, too, they are not particularly interested in the actual amounts of money involved. They are concerned about the issues of fairness and recognition, like me, and how wonderful it would have been if her final message was that she cared about her children equally and unconditionally.
This is not going to happen!
Which then brings me on to the subject of the potential letter... I'm contemplating writing it in a non-confrontational way, expressing concern about the likely impact on my brother - but leaving it at that. In no way telling her what to do, but just offering an insight which may or may not be received.
Then, totally, letting go the outcome.
Any thoughts?