Background Part 2

The Shit hits the fan--AKA---The Hidden is Revealed.

This may come across as a laundry list of bullshit events.  At this point I can't think of any other way to record it. Maybe as I process the past I'll make connections and start to feel what happened rather than just dissect it intellectually. It always starts mentally with me. I forget I have a body sometimes I get so wrapped up in my head.

In December my mother said she would call me about my daughter's Christmas present. She didn't call when I expected her to so I left a message. I received a call from a woman I didn't know and a man who sounded very business-like on the phone. I recognized his name from my mother's mention of her will. He was to be my bro's "handler" and manage his inheritance in a trust fund, as well as be co-executor in my mother's will with my husband.  He informed me that my mother was in the hospital. It had been two days she had been there and no one had contacted me. Needless to say, I was pissed.

My bro had seen her Weds and she couldn't get out of bed. He probably screamed at her and then rummaged through her purse and the medicine cabinet for drugs and money then took off. The following day was when he came back and called the paramedics. When I got a hold of her at the hospital she was so out of it she couldn't speak. Her lips were dried and her tongue was swollen from dehydration. It was hard to tell what she was saying. He had left her there to die and was probably disappointed when she didn't.

My bro had moved into the house that afternoon according to Mrs. R. I immediately wanted to know if there was a power of attorney and who he/she was. For some reason she wanted to keep it a secret from me. I made a lot of very angry and loud phone calls until finally the POA called me herself. Once I knew it was JA I was relieved. I told her to go to the house and get the jewelry out, mom's purse and anything else valuable. I didn't find out until later that some damage was already done.

JA managed to get the jewelry, she inventoried it, photographed it and deposited into a safe deposit box at the bank. Then she set about getting a handle on the finances. He boyfriend kept mentioning how much my mother had, how big the estate was. I didn't really understand why he was so hung up on this. I came to find out there was a lot that mom had kept secret. Most of the financials led to a lot of anger. She lied about not being able to pay for Mt Holyoke. She lied about everything being okay. She kept secret all the bills she was paying the drugs she was buying for my bro.

My bro got arrested for his second DWI in the middle of January. His first DWI had been in November. He totaled mom's car. I jumped on as POA thanks to a forward thinking estate lawyer. JA was threatening to quit because of the fraud on the account and the mess of the estate finances. It was hard to tell what was really mom's bills and what was fraud.  I started visiting the house to get a hold of her paperwork and destroy as much as possible that was not necessary and file into a system the things that were necessary. It took five full days to go through just the paperwork in that house. The kitchen had 7 drawers of it, four filing cabinet drawers, a drawer in the dining room and a drawer in the bedroom.

 JA started to find forged checks coming from the bank to the tune of 14K. We had to put a stop on the account and do what we could to freeze it. The associates at the bank were helpful but the procedures and policies of the corporation made it both impossible to stop the theft and impossible to close the account. The checks kept getting cashed for weeks after we alerted the bank to the fraud. One branch wasn't talking to another. And the police were  no help. Because mom was still alive we didn't have the power to protect the estate and take the stand in her stead. She would have to press charges. We all knew she would never do anything against my bro, partly out of fear and partly out of guilt. She blamed herself for his mess. Years ago I had a conversation with her about him, when she expressed guilt in an unusually open moment. I told her his addiction was in his blood and she was not to blame for it. That's only partly true as she and dad were horrible enablers.

We found out it was both my bro and his friend, the co-executor forging checks. We also discovered they were using mom's account to pay their cable bill and had stolen her phone and used it for illegal activities. Then paid for it to keep it working with a fraudulent payment over the phone.  We found out in March the co-exec had been picked up by the Feds for smuggling illegal aliens across the border from Canada.  The illegals were actually from Eastern Europe. The Feds kept the phone. At least it wasn't being used anymore and charging up bills.

When I jumped on as POA not only did I need to get a handle on the fraud, but I needed to prioritize her bills and pay off all debts with whatever we could scrape together. We used the insurance check from the truck to pay off the loan, it was totaled. We sold the car in April to pay off that loan and all finances left went to paying off any other loans or cards and canceling them. By the time I was done, over three months, I managed to get her finances down to utilities and properties upkeep expenses. If it wasn't for my brother's expenses her monthly bills would have gone down to 500 a month. My bro's expenses added $1200 to her monthly overhead. I had decreased her monthly expenses from almost 4000 a months to 1700 a month.

I traveled up to my home town three times a month to clean, organize and meet with JA to calm her down. Her boyfriend kept working her up over things. She was terrified she was going to get shot at or bombed by the Indians from the Rez. The co-executor was from a prominent Rez family. My bro's girlfriend was also his dealer. My bro was safely locked behind bars until the end of April so I didn't have to worry about being attacked or taken by surprise at the house.

I visited mom in the hospital on my way up and on my way back. She was located along the route I drove to get there. I remember a couple of visits. During one visit she talked about getting together with family for dinner. She started naming people who were all dead. I suddenly felt really crowded in the small room.  I could feel all these people or spirits pressing in around us. In my mind's eye I could see the shapes of figures crowding around mom. It was then that I knew she was so close to dying. These others had come to help her cross over. They were gathering to prepare her.

I spent more than one visit sobbing in the car afterward trying to eat lunch in between gasps for air and breaking down. It felt like I was an orphan already. Not something I am unfamiliar with. I was adopted and wrestled with abandonment early in life. Not a fun thing.

There were moments while cleaning the house I lay in mom's bed like a little girl and just felt the waves of sadness. I found my old cabbage patch doll and hugged it. I had moments when I had to stop in the middle of pulling laundry out of the dryer and just let it out. I got so angry. She cheated my daughter out of a grandparent. She couldn't quit drinking.  Like she cared more for that than any family she had or could have. She was so consumed with keeping up the web of lies, keeping up appearances I couldn't even connect with her when she came to visit us the last time. It had been a month before she filed her will and less than half a year before she went into the hospital.

If I had really wanted to know that something was wrong I don't think it would have been hard to put the pieces together and figure it out. But I had worked so hard to build a new life totally disconnected from the old that I didn't keep in touch with what was going on. I stupidly trusted my bro to get his shit together and take care of business. I thought he'd protect her after dad died. He owed her that after all the shit that they did for him and all the money they spent on him. Instead he let these leaches and con-artists into her life and took her for every penny he could get. Almost 200K in less than 2 years.

 I have copies of the bank statements going back to Jan 2010. I did financial forensics to try to trace where the money came from and where it went; what was legit and what was fraud. The lawyer has all the copies now.

It did cross my mind to try to talk her into selling her house and moving into my house. But at the same time I wasn't brave enough to broach the subject. What would we do for hours in the same house? We could barely be comfortable watching an old movie together for less than two hours. We struggled to find things to talk about and silences were awkward and uncomfortable.

She did love my daughter though. I wonder what she was thinking while she stared at her. She seemed almost afraid to touch her. She'd stroke her back and just say she loved her over and over. I think she knew for a while that she was on her way out.

My bro got out of jail mid April and was there when we had to sell the car. We found a good kid and his dad from PA that wanted it. We had to roll it out of the garage because it wouldn't start. I thought it funny that the door had been unlocked when I know I had locked it.  I know for a fact that it worked the last time because I started it up just the week before and it purred. The engine wouldn't even turn over and I knew there was something up with the starter. I suggested maybe it needed a tune-up or spark plugs. When my hubby checked under the hood he and the young man discovered circuits had been pulled from the computer panel. My bro had picked the lock, popped the hood and snatched some circuits out to sabotage the car.

He yelled at us while we were rolling the car onto the truck. He laughed and taunted my hubbie and the guys. The gentlemen still wanted it. I had the foresight to call a police officer to keep my bro under control for the first half of the transaction. When the men got in the truck and the police left I had to walk across the lawn to get to my vehicle. My bro heckled me the whole way. He kept trying to catch me in a lie. For some reason he thinks all this was a lie from start to finish. Even when he admitted to the check forgery and the theft from the house, etc. he then tried to turn it around on us and accuse us of lying. Eventually he got a lawyer and considered suing us for whatever we had done wrong with the estate as POA. I think his lawyer talked him out of it. He dropped any idea of going after JA and I. She must have explained to him that he had no legal ground to stand on. The car was in mom's name and the money was used to pay her debts.  He tried to argue that we should give him my car because mom bought it for me. But it's in my name, I told anyone that would listen.

I spent the night at mom's house while she was in the hospital exactly once and only because a friend came to the house and stayed with me. She helped me search the basement for my old stuff and heirlooms. I found some old lace, some toys from my room and the old cuckoo clock from great grandma. Every minute I stayed in that house I was on guard for intruders or some of my bro's friends popping in to make trouble. Luckily nothing happened. But the fear was still there and I hated being in that house. Not to mention the past was heavy in the air. My friend mentioned she could feel snippets of my past, my adolescence and childhood in my old room.  I couldn't stand being around that and avoided the front of the house. When I did stay there that night I slept in the family room where I couldn't hear or feel the past as much.

The adrenaline and fear was so much more heightened by the constant phone calls from people who seemed to be feeding off of the drama. I did contact a couple of branches of the family for consultation and support. I got the most support from one of my aunt's who had an alcoholic family member and so could relate to the anger and emptiness. The locals were in it for drama or control. Mrs R seemed to see my bro as a second chance to save her son. He had committed suicide in his 20s while under the influence. He had a long drug problem and she couldn't help him. There's some family secret involving the two boys having the same birth mother and they've known since they were little. They were brothers, not just best friends.

At first she seemed to be trying to be tough and fair with him but then the enabling crept in. It started easily enough with an attempt at explaining to me what his perspective was and trying to get me to empathize with his pain and loss. I still can't decide if my brother is really bipolar or just a psychopath who knows how to use emotional manipulation to get other people to do his dirty work and give him what he wants. I'm leaning toward the latter.

With JA's boyfriend I had to balance two opposites. I knew the drama seemed to be what he wanted. It made him feel important to be in the middle of the whirlwind. But on the other hand he was really helpful. He helped with changed the locks, getting people to hire to clean out the basement and carry heavy stuff. So I had to walk that line with him.

Mom entered the nursing home in February and seemed to settle in nicely. It was a very nice place. The nurses were extra attentive which may have something to do with the daily random visits from JA and Mrs R. They kept everyone on their toes.

Two incidences stood out. I found out about a harassment incident when mom first went into the hospital. She had only been there less than 2 weeks in January. Apparently the co-executor had driven my bro to her hospital. He went in and started screaming at her to give him money. He tried to find her purse and get what he could. The staff had locked her valuables up thankfully and then called security to have him escorted out and ban him from the hospital.

The second incident happened in early March or late Feb. The co-exec and the girlfriend went to the nursing home and rummaged around for her purse. JA and I had kept all her stuff so mom had no cards or anything with her.  They then produced a check from the old account and got her to sign it. At this point one of the nurses got suspicious, caught them in the act and snatched the check. She wrote up a full report with the voided check included. The nerve of that bastard.

Mom died April 29th. She had gone in to the hospital Sunday morning because of horrible stomach cramps. They were just going to do a check up. The nurse called me to tell me about the transfer. Then Mrs. R called me to tell me to get up to the hospital. The doctor called me with specific details. He liver was dead and had been dead for some time. They were treating her for a massive abdominal infection and her kidneys were failing.

It took me about an hour to decide to go. I wasn't sure and I kept stalling. I was putting up wainscot in the bathroom and stayed to glue a few more panels in place. I finally made my decision and drove 6 hours strait without stopping. I got there around 12:30 on the 29th. Mom woke up when I came in and she lit up when she saw me. We got maybe two sentences out before she fell back to sleep. Every exhale was an "Ow".
I started getting pissed and wanted it all to just stop. Just make the pain stop. It shouldn't be this painful. She should pass peacefully. She woke for a few seconds after that and we watched her blood pressure drop. I thought I might go to Mrs R's house and just get a couple hours of sleep and come back soon. I got to the house and was in the middle of brushing my teeth when I got the call to come back. Her vitals were dropping really fast.

I think she may have been waiting for me to see her before she finally let go.

The nurse asked me what she wanted me to do. I told her at that point just give her pain killer and turn off the machines. I made it back to the hospital. My bro actually showed up. I remember watching her chest for movement. I remember hearing the last gasp and seeing a tear slip out of her eye, between the lids. I wondered about that tear. I've heard so many stories about a tear slipping out at the moment of death. That's when I knew. She died at 1:58 but wasn't declared dead until after 2am. It took the doctor a few minutes to get there to declare it officially. We had a priest from the catholic church do final rights for her.

I'm Wiccan but I respect her rights in her religion. On my way out I reached out to brush her bangs off of her forehead and felt the cold clammy skin. The skin looses it's texture and becomes almost like rubber after the soul has left.

I got back to Mrs. R's house around 2:30 and stayed up to talk a bit. I don't remember about what. Then I went to bed but didn't sleep. I couldn't get comfortable. I was hot and sticky and images from the past 12 hours kept coming into my head. I know I cried but I don't really remember crying.  I finally just got out of bed around 8am and took a shower. The funeral home called while I was in the shower and I agreed to visit them around noon that day to arrange the service. I stopped by the nursing home to tell what happened and pick up mom's things. I pretty much packed up everything and ended up dropping everything but a blanket and picture books off at a goodwill near my house.

I had to keep stopping to cry. I hid in the closet at one point and just gasped for a while. One of the cleaning ladies came in and hugged me. Apparently people really liked mom. She had been very pleasant and agreeable. She made friends with everyone. The last time we had visited her we had brought my daughter. We had actually brought her three weeks in a row due to various things that needed to be done where my husband had to come with me and we brought her as well. Mom wanted to walk around and introduce my daughter to everyone. She kept stroking her leg and talking about how much she loved her. She got all teary eyed with it. We'd let her run around mom's room and she'd just stare at her granddaughter. She'd let her get into or destroy anything.

It was definitely too early for me to be doing these things but these things needed to be done. I've always been very practical, making lists, planning ahead, investing finances carefully. I'm cautious and calculating.
It pissed me off that others would look at me like I was cold because I was doing what needed to be done and wasn't breaking down and throwing myself around. There were too many things that needed to get done and I was the only one to do them. I was the reliable one. I was the one not an addict or basket case.

I tried to be civil with my bro and get him involved with the funeral. I prompted him to pick out funeral cards, the urn, etc. She was cremated as she told me she wanted to be. I was determined to keep the funeral small and simple with a religious ceremony. A full mass was appropriate for her. I picked out hymns and readings and made calls to volunteer people to read. I wanted one aunt to read a selection but she told another aunt to do it. I cringed. This person had done a reading at dad's funeral and she was silly and out of place with her comments. My aunt apologized. She hadn't realized why I had not asked this person to read and had asked her instead. Thankfully, the aunt who did read kept to the reading and didn't improvise like she had at dad's funeral.

I ran back to the funeral home with clothes for mom. I know it was a cremation and she would have been just fine in her hospital gown but I just couldn't bring myself to not have her dressed in a nice dress even without a viewing. Mom did not want a viewing. She saw it as too morbid. She hated the service dad had had. But he had never told her his wishes and so she went with whatever the Methodist traditions were. Mrs R said she had felt the same way about her daughter when she had to prepare her for her burial. K had died from breast cancer a few years ago.

At the funeral I had to greet people at the door. The whole family stood to my right between the outer and inner doors of the church. I liked to think they were shielding me as much as possible. I met students of my mother from her days teaching short hand and typing. I met some teachers that she had worked with. My 11th grade English teacher springs to mind most notably. She had such a strong spirit and a great wit to lighten the mood. In the classroom she was a drill sergeant. I think I'm a lot like her when I teach; high standards and no bullshit.

And then the con-artist, co-exec showed up with the drug dealing girlfriend on my bro's arm and the other sister on his arm. The funeral director introduced him to me.
"Have you met J---, the daughter?"
"No I haven't had the pleasure." He had this shit-eating grin on his face. Used car salesman comes to mind but I actually like used car salesmen. I've met some good ones so that comparison would be an insult. It was obvious he believed he would be able to charm me the way he had so many other people. I saw that shark coming from the moment he entered the door.

He had been at the hospital too but Mrs. R had been there and pulled him outside. She told him to go home. He was making a spectacle of himself, falling all over my mother, kissing her forehead and playing the part of a grieving lover. She said it was sickening. This had happened before I arrived and she told him to not come back. She had also told him to not come to the funeral. The family doesn't like him, they know what he has done and it would be in poor taste. He obviously came anyway.

He turned to me from the funeral directer and asked," How are you?" and held out his hand to shake mine.
I stared at him and asked, "Who are you?" I thought it was him but I needed to be sure. I kept my hands clasped in front of me over my belly. I had a slight twitch of an instinct to shake his hand but steeled myself away from it. I was raised polite but this person did not deserve niceties.
He gave me his name still holding out his hand
I looked him up and down and said, "Okay." Then I turned away.
I gave the girl he was with a pity smile and continued down the line.

Imagine that. "How are you?" while my mother's urn wasn't more than 20 feet away. How the fuck you think I am, dickwad?

I remember seeing him out of the corner of my eye while greeting others, complaining to my bro about how I had treated him, trying to play up the grieving adopted son routine.  Pathetic. His world had started crumbling and he still had no idea how completely it would all dissolve in the next two months. I enjoyed his downfall exquisitely.

Before I went to the funeral I remember thinking repeatedly that I hoped one person in particular would be there. She was my creative writing teacher from 12th grade. For some reason she was on my mind a lot.
Sure enough, after communion, she came by my pew and squeezed my hand. It was like that was what I needed. I just crumbled and started crying. I couldn't get the tears to stop. Even as I could control my muscles and the sobs in my chest, the water kept flowing. The funeral director held my arm and walked me out. My hubbie followed behind me.

This was the most civil it would get.

While mom was at the nursing home the quick thinking lawyer got a new will drafted with me placed as executor and cutting out the old con-artist. My bro and his buddies were not pleased.Things were about to get ugly.