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Happened to me when my parents died and my oldest brother was the executor of the will. Sorry about the length but hopefully the story helps someone forgive.
1. First.....the loan he got from dad to put a down payment on their house .
papers disappeared.
2. Instead of getting my full portion of the estate...... he decided since I was the only child who went to college and my parents paid for it that I should pay back my parents because it wasn't fair to the rest of them. Truth be known, the deduction on my parents income taxes was probably more than they paid for college back then. He and the lawyer deducted the tuition, room and board, expenses from my portion.
3. I had had a baby (c-section) 3 weeks before mom died. On a Friday 2 months after the funeral I got the letter from the lawyer saying the court date was Monday. I live 1500 miles away. I could not get to probate on that short of notice. Several (7 out of the 10 brothers and sisters) fought for me in court; but the judge ruled if I cared I would have been there.
4. When they had the sale for my parents property the next month, he sold things including furniture that I had stored in mom's attic when I moved .
5. When his wife got on the phone and yelled at me, I finally just said " From now on consider yourselves no more important in my life as the person sitting next to me on a bus. "
6. That was our last contact for 7 years. I had been to my hometown a few times over the years; but he avoided all family related things if I was home. We were even at the same grocery store once and blew by each other.
Then...... there was a Dear Abby column about forgiving someone for Christmas.....it got to me. I sent a Christmas card to my brother and signed only our names. They sent a friendly one back that year.
7. That year my family drove up to the family reunion which is Labor Day weekend and they came. We spoke. I stayed to help clean up and he stayed which was a first for him. We talked for about an hour after everyone else left. Neither one of us said sorry for the way we had acted towards each other, but we were friendly and working on being family again.
8. Forward to of the end of that October and there was a family wedding up there. I did not attend because it was during the school year. My brother fell going into the bar after the wedding for which he took a lot of ribbing. But not knowing why he passed out and fell, he went to the doctor the next day. What followed were lots of tests. Result....an inoperable brain tumor. A biopsy of the tumor came out cancerous.
9.He was in intensive care. I got a call that he needed to see me. I got a flight to Chicago the week before Thanksgiving. His family ushered me in to see him the minute I got there. You could only be there for 10 minutes and had to leave. We talked. He never really said he was sorry. He still insisted it was the lawyer that insisted he do what he did. Ever 2 hours his family made sure I got in to see him while I was there. My being there relieved the burden he had been carrying for 7 years. The guilt was gone. We talked, we laughed, we reminisced about his silly songs he sang to me when I was a kid....sang some together, too.
10. I had to go home because of my kids, but we talked every day on the phone. He died Thanksgiving weekend.
So definitely do everything you can to see a family member whether it be a mom, dad, brother, sister.....you never know how long you have and the relief of knowing you were able to tell them you love them is worth it. When you see them remember the good times forget the hurt. I can not imagine how guilty I would still feel today if we had not reconciled and the last words I had said to him were" You are just a stranger on a bus to me from now on" .
It sounds like your family did a real number on you to have you feeling guilty for being a victim of your brother's fraud and theft against you. He never felt guilt, he lied to you on his death bed blaming the lawyer, and you know this.
Your story is more of a cautionary tale than an example of what is right.
Family relationships are too complex for these anecdotes to apply to anyone other than the family in the story. Further, family abuse and dysfunction can twist a person into a pretzel so they don't even know what is right or wrong anymore. You were significantly abused and manipulated by your brother, make no mistake.
Sometimes it seems people just want to be validated as righteous when they probably should have stepped up and stood up for themselves. If I had a friend who was victimized by family as you were I would slap them if they said they felt guilty about anything. I HAVE had friends who went back to abusive relationships and took blame for the abuse or felt guilty in some way for being "mean" to the abuser. This is classic abuse victim behavior.
My wife has a sister she has not talked to in ten years who is in a hospital dying of cancer. I understand the sister will likely die within a month. The dying sister is in a hospital 500 miles away from where we live.
I asked my wife why she does not call her sister up on the phone or plan a trip to visit her. My wife said, "why should I, we have not talked to each other for the last ten years when she was well, why now?"
The sister dying of cancer and my wife never had a major blow up but just had a cold distant relationship. Nothing in common and their personalities did not match, so they just stopped communicating.
I don't know what to make of it. On one hand, if siblings don't talk to each other for ten years when they are healthy, maybe making an effort when one of them is dying is hypocritical. But maybe when someone is dying, that is a time to be an adult and make amends.
What about you? If you had a brother or sister you had such a distant cold relationship with that you had not talked to them in ten years, would you drive 500 miles to visit them at the hospital on their death bed?
For me, that would be the case with my sister - she lives somewhere in California, and I haven't seen or talked to her & her family in about five years. The way things are right now, I would not visit her if she was in the hospital, and I don't think she would want me to.
I realize this sounds harsh, but just to briefly get into why I feel this way - about five years ago, my sister's older daughter falsely accused my daughter of sexually molesting her during a family weekend/gathering. It caused a VERY nasty rift in the family, wasted a lot of time in court and legal costs, and my daughter attempted suicide twice because she was terrified at facing jail time for something she had NOT done.
Fortunately, the situation worked out for her, but my sister and her husband were very angry/upset that nobody believed their side, and they cut off contact with most everyone in the family. (I believe they've specifically asked that we NOT contact them)
I do totally agree with sunsprit. I have a sister who has tried to trash my life, all my life. I finally asked her point blank once what her problem was & she admitted she'd been jealous of me. That didn't stop her from continuing her actions.
Now that I am totally away from my family I plan to never see or speak to her again. I ignored many of her actions to keep peace, I no longer feel that need.
I would have to agree with both Sunsprit and yourself. IMO it's not for others to judge how others deal with their family members, they know nothing about the family's history or dynamics.
I have one sister who's been estranged from our other siblings and mother for about 7 yrs now, she and my other sister have been estranged for much longer than that. The estrangement for my mother, brother and myself came about over my mother's desired living arrangements and her expectations that we ( in particular, I),would carry them out for her. For some reason, my sister became very hostile towards us even though she wanted my mother gone ( mom had been living with her), and had said so for yrs. She attempted to sabotage the planned move, accused us of all sorts of pathology and "evil", and after a while and continued attacks, I cut her off, although I left the door open for a relationship without all the hostility.
If it were just this, or she showed any inkling of wanting even a civil relationship, I'd have been happy to pursue it. But it was always difficult to get along with, judgemental, you had to walk on eggshells to avoid offending her, and for some reason she decided from day one she didn't like my husband, and by extension ( for some bizarre reason), our daughter, and was rude and made fun of them almost any time she saw them. We didn't see her much. And after this last thing with my mother, I attempted to extend a tentative olive branch ( sent a Chistmas card with a brief "hope you are well", note), about two yrs after that, only to have her respond with the nastiest, most vicious note back ( unsigned) with among other things, instructions not to contact her again, as she didn't want her pure soul sullied by the evil that I was, and that I was not her sister. I tore up that letter, figured, ok, fine by me, she's gone as far as I am concerned. I don't miss her and don't even think about her much. If she were to try and re-establish contact, I'd leave it distant, polite as one might any stranger, and let it go at that. I don't trust her and won't tolerate any more of her hostility to my own family.
According to the grapevine, she and her husband moved to Hawaii-the Big Island, but I don't know where on it she lives. Of course she never informed me of any move, although for some bizarre reason she sent ( at least I assume it was her), an unsigned postcard with another nasty note on it saying she wanted no contact with the evil that I am, but in case I ever had information or anything I wanted her to know, to send it to an address ( in Hawaii) shown on the card, but NOT to contact her otherwise. I could only guess she expects me to notify her when our mother dies, but she's been that nasty to mom too, disowned mom, and I can't imagine why she would expect me to have that news, or any other ( such as my own death), sent to her, or why she would even care, and I tossed the postcard. Apparently she sent that same nastygram to my brother, but he kept it so he might let her know.
So in the event she was dying in a hospital, would I go visit her? No, I would not. I would consider it a waste of time, money and effort. I'd wish her Godspeed in a brief thought, and then go on with my day. Heck, from what I gather she and her husband live on the end of the Big Island where the Mauna Loa volcano is spewing it lava and other volcanic products, but I have no idea how close they are to the action or how much ( if any), they are affected. I guess my mother called my nephew and asked what he knew, and he told mom they aren't close to what is happening, and should be ok. I'm glad to hear it, but it's the same reaction I would have hearing of any stranger potentially in harm's way.,
A brother or sister you have not talked to in years is in hospital 500 miles away dying- would you visit?
Yes
I remember calling my father's brother on my father's dying bed. They had not talked for years. All I can say he was an a** on his response... BUT, he did go visit his brother/my father--which I am thankful for...
What about you? If you had a brother or sister you had such a distant cold relationship with that you had not talked to them in ten years, would you drive 500 miles to visit them at the hospital on their death bed?
My thoughts are this: unless you have walked in these shoes it's hard to say. Time passes by and what memories you have will fade away. If it's mostly bad memories then hell yeah it's easy to be offended and never look back. Good memories will soften your heart and if you have none it is what it is.
Happened to me when my parents died and my oldest brother was the executor of the will. Sorry about the length but hopefully the story helps someone forgive.
1. First.....the loan he got from dad to put a down payment on their house .
papers disappeared.
2. Instead of getting my full portion of the estate...... he decided since I was the only child who went to college and my parents paid for it that I should pay back my parents because it wasn't fair to the rest of them. Truth be known, the deduction on my parents income taxes was probably more than they paid for college back then. He and the lawyer deducted the tuition, room and board, expenses from my portion.
3. I had had a baby (c-section) 3 weeks before mom died. On a Friday 2 months after the funeral I got the letter from the lawyer saying the court date was Monday. I live 1500 miles away. I could not get to probate on that short of notice. Several (7 out of the 10 brothers and sisters) fought for me in court; but the judge ruled if I cared I would have been there.
4. When they had the sale for my parents property the next month, he sold things including furniture that I had stored in mom's attic when I moved .
5. When his wife got on the phone and yelled at me, I finally just said " From now on consider yourselves no more important in my life as the person sitting next to me on a bus. "
6. That was our last contact for 7 years. I had been to my hometown a few times over the years; but he avoided all family related things if I was home. We were even at the same grocery store once and blew by each other.
Then...... there was a Dear Abby column about forgiving someone for Christmas.....it got to me. I sent a Christmas card to my brother and signed only our names. They sent a friendly one back that year.
7. That year my family drove up to the family reunion which is Labor Day weekend and they came. We spoke. I stayed to help clean up and he stayed which was a first for him. We talked for about an hour after everyone else left. Neither one of us said sorry for the way we had acted towards each other, but we were friendly and working on being family again.
8. Forward to of the end of that October and there was a family wedding up there. I did not attend because it was during the school year. My brother fell going into the bar after the wedding for which he took a lot of ribbing. But not knowing why he passed out and fell, he went to the doctor the next day. What followed were lots of tests. Result....an inoperable brain tumor. A biopsy of the tumor came out cancerous.
9.He was in intensive care. I got a call that he needed to see me. I got a flight to Chicago the week before Thanksgiving. His family ushered me in to see him the minute I got there. You could only be there for 10 minutes and had to leave. We talked. He never really said he was sorry. He still insisted it was the lawyer that insisted he do what he did. Ever 2 hours his family made sure I got in to see him while I was there. My being there relieved the burden he had been carrying for 7 years. The guilt was gone. We talked, we laughed, we reminisced about his silly songs he sang to me when I was a kid....sang some together, too.
10. I had to go home because of my kids, but we talked every day on the phone. He died Thanksgiving weekend.
So definitely do everything you can to see a family member whether it be a mom, dad, brother, sister.....you never know how long you have and the relief of knowing you were able to tell them you love them is worth it. When you see them remember the good times forget the hurt. I can not imagine how guilty I would still feel today if we had not reconciled and the last words I had said to him were" You are just a stranger on a bus to me from now on" .
Unless you're leaving out something important, I don't see what you had to be sorry about. It doesn't sound like your brother was sorry about anything.
You have seven brothers and sisters who fought for you in court? Did they give you any part of the inheritance? If so, those are the people I'd cultivate a relationship with.
My wife has a sister she has not talked to in ten years who is in a hospital dying of cancer. I understand the sister will likely die within a month. The dying sister is in a hospital 500 miles away from where we live.
I asked my wife why she does not call her sister up on the phone or plan a trip to visit her. My wife said, "why should I, we have not talked to each other for the last ten years when she was well, why now?"
The sister dying of cancer and my wife never had a major blow up but just had a cold distant relationship. Nothing in common and their personalities did not match, so they just stopped communicating.
I don't know what to make of it. On one hand, if siblings don't talk to each other for ten years when they are healthy, maybe making an effort when one of them is dying is hypocritical. But maybe when someone is dying, that is a time to be an adult and make amends.
What about you? If you had a brother or sister you had such a distant cold relationship with that you had not talked to them in ten years, would you drive 500 miles to visit them at the hospital on their death bed?
Yes. Because life is too damned short to be a spiteful person.
THIS ^^^^^^
I feel the same because I have a twin sister and we never ever got along or really even liked one another. She is a narcissist and a back-stabbing liar and totally untrustworthy. We haven't spoken in at least 13 years. I miss her not! I'm sure she feels the same toward me and hey, that's cool. I'm sure one of the cousins will call either her or I one day to say the other has died. Que Sera Sera.........
And that’s just it. If it is a toxic or broken relationship, that’s a different kettle of fish than one that is just not very close. My brother and I get along pretty well and never had any big breaks in our relationship, or unhealthiness, but we hardly ever see each other and pretty much never talk. Like, years on end of no communication. But that’s just because we don’t make the effort, not because we dislike one another.
So yeah, if my brother was sick or dying I’d absolutely go and try to offer comfort and help, because I love him even though we aren’t very close. But if he was a narcissist or we had other major issues involved in a break of contact that would change the assessment.
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