When widower Michael died he left in his will (apart from a few practical things) a beautiful recommendation to his five adult children:
Treat one another and care for one another as I would care for you all if I was still alive.
Mona said that since she had looked after their father in the last two months of his life she had full right to get a greater share of their father’s savings.
Colin said that since Preston lived in Australia, apart from the occasional communication, he deserved little in the way of inheritance. He might as well not have existed.
Preston said that on the contrary; he may have lived in Australia but he maintained more contact with his father than a number who lived close by. Inez, for example, lived only ten minutes away from their father and never visited.
Inez said that as far as she was concerned Adele wasn’t entitled to any of the inheritance. We have watched her and her husband squander their life’s savings on drink, and I’m not going to watch father’s well-earned money get flushed down the toilet.
Adele said that she had been her father’s favourite and it was only fair that she should get father’s house. Besides, Mona’s oldest son was in rehab for drug taking. That alone should count Mona out.
Colin said Adele could buy the four-fifths of the house that wasn’t hers; he wanted the car.
Mona reckoned…
Whatever… court cases are pending.
That Michael knew what he was doing – they’d fight so much they’d never get his riches!
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It’s many a repeated theme I suspect. My mother’s will said “No arguments”. So far it’s held true!
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My dad finished his life with a Walmart bag of stuff so there was nothing to fight about. Except my one brother found a way. * sigh * Sorry. I meant to say something clever.
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I had a brother take most things even before the parents died, so there was no arguing once they did!
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Yeah, that’s messed up. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad. My parents had a large tub of photographs that my brother took and subsequently lost.
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I had an aunt who burnt all things associated with family members who died in WW I & II.
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What? Was she just anti-war?
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No – her brother was killed in the war and she couldn’t bear to think of it.
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Oh ok…sorry but I’d never heard of that before.
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That’s the only case I know of!
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Well sorry Bruce…I feel like the a$$ of the party!
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You’re too sensitive Max. I don’t give a s***!!! It’s all before my time!
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Yea I can’t help it… sometimes all it takes is one question to bring the party down! Thanks Bruce
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So, hang on, how did I get dragged into this?
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I’ve just realized! It goes to show that truth is stranger than fiction.
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Well, that all depends on how strange the fiction is. Sometimes I believe that I am actually fictional, but then I realise that it wouldn’t make any sense.
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Perhaps you are me in another dimension.
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Only you. I am in this one.
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And just yesterday I commented on Steve McQueen – so clearly you’re in my thoughts:
https://powerpop.blog/2021/06/04/the-magnificent-seven/
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Ah, poor Steve – if only he was as cool as I…
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I was likened to James Coburn in my younger days – but that was because I used to be sexy.
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I was likened to Clint Eastwood – but only because nobody ever knew my name…
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I know how you feel. A few years ago I enthusiastically went to a 50 year school reunion and most people didn’t remember me – even though I had a fabulous personality and played the piano.
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School reunions are just WEIRD. After 50 years you all immediately settle back into the hierarchy of yesteryear; teenage passions are rekindled; nicknames not heard for half a century re-emerge and you wake up the next morning with a throbbing head, nits and threadworm…
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Now I feel even more left out. I never got nits.
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You never KNEW you got nits. You could have been the asymptomatic superspreader. I can still remember the name of the shampoo, Suleo, fifty years on. On my childhood estate, if you did not have nits, threadworm and ringworm, you were ostracised. He who had scabies was king!
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Apart from toe-jam (athlete’s foot) we had none of those things! And also just the usual measles (German and English), mumps, and chicken pox.
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You never lived!
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I had scabies which I caught in the hospital!
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Well, you win!
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I’ll bet he was a horrible father.
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Yes – they probably just carried on like their Dad..
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A saga as old as the planet and yet it was interesting enough.
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Indeed, greed hath ruled the world many a time.
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Ain’t that the truth!
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Ain’t that so!
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This could go on forever and ever. Loved reading this. 🙂
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Thank you Terveen. Apparently it does quite often go on for ever and ever!
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