Blog Share

This post is part of -R-'s Blog Share and was written by an anonymous blogger (not Tessie). Tessie's post today appears anonymously on another Blog Share participant's blog. Tessie hopes you will play along and read and comment and all that jazz even though it's totally bizarre how she's gone all Third Person on your ass here.

My grandmother has informed her four children that she is cutting three of them out of her will.

This is the sort of vindictive, mean-spirited thing a person usually does to have a final revenge from beyond the grave, but that would not be her style, because she would not be around to witness the hurt and anger that would result.

Actually, it's much worse. She does not actually have a will. She is telling her children this now so that they will feel compelled to follow her wishes after she is gone even though if there is no legal document backing any of it up. Even if the law says that without a will, all four of her children will inherit her estate. She refuses to get a will because, she claims, she doesn't have anything.

I knew my grandmother was crazy, but this really takes the cake. This revelation upset my mom and her two brothers who are cut out, and -- shocker of shockers! -- my grandmother is now upset that THEY are upset! There isn't anything to give away, you see! How dare they want smaller and smaller pieces of nothing? Can't they see that their brother is the only one who really needs the nothing she will be giving? What a bunch of ingrates! If she hadn't already cut them out, she definitely would now!

It is NOT about money: my grandmother does not have any. But I think it's telling that that is how she is framing the issue. It either has not occurred to her that anyone would want something to remember her by, or she is desperate for people to SAY that they do. I suspect that it is the latter, if only because it would give her such pleasure to hold it over the head of whoever cracked and said it first. ("You want my spoon collection because it reminds you of me? Yes, I knew you would want it. Too bad. It's going to your big brother anyway. It would be too much work to put all of my stuff in four boxes instead of one. That would be TIRING. What, you think I'm healthy enough to pack boxes?")

And there is nothing I can say other than to comfort my mother by pointing out that she didn't cause any of this, and reassure her that today is Blog Share day, so nobody knows it is me and nobody knows it is her. Really. Well, one of my siblings does, but none of this is a surprise to my family.

I wouldn't post this on my own blog because my mother wouldn't want it there, but I know she will read this and recognise herself. I want her to know that our family loves her very much and that she doesn't deserve any of the mind games her mother has played on her over the past few decades.