Within our family, there is always the spoken or unspoken concerning inheritance. Whether your mother writes different family names on plates and bowls (true)or you are told outright, that is mine when she dies(also true), we all pretty much know how the stuff is going to be split.
That was true for my family. My father had a very sizable inheritance coming his way, he talked about it all the time. It would available late in his life but he would not have to worry about where his next meal was coming from, for the rest of his life. He would tell my sister and I about how we would also share in the inheritance of the Farm. There was emough for us all.
It was always in the back of our minds, that someday we too, would not have to worry about food or shelter. That came to an abrupt end when after my father passed away, we found out from my aunt that my father had sold his part of the inheritance to her for 1/100 of what it was worth. He never told us what he had done. It felt like a cruel joke but if you understood the history, you would say, but of course.
When my FIL passed away, my friend who was a realtor told me, Watch out! People will fight over the smallest of things. The worse comes out in people at times like this. She was right, it was but a few hours later that a relative helped himself not only into the house but to the specific thing he wanted. It would not end there. Another relative who had more personal stuff than nayone in the family, wanted to dismantle a photo to see who painted it because she wanted it if her mother was the artist. Wow.
It is no wonder that my favorite parable is the Prodigal Son. So unfair, from a human point of view but in the end, it is still stuff. Inheritance is the character, the humanities, that you have left behind. No amount of stuff can compare to the countenance of leaving a legacy of love, grace, kindness and joy. If you were robbed of your true inheritance, make sure you leave Something behind better than was left to you...
