It has been a bit hard to get into the Christmas spirit this year. We are celebrating post Hurricane Michael. We are in a house that has tarps for ceilings in our dining room, master bedroom & bath. We have a tarp on our roof and have found that there is a hole over the master bathroom. My daughter & granddaughter’s room is fine but my husband & I are sleeping on the couch. We do have a couple cots, but they aren’t as comfortable. Soon we will be in our garage while they work on the inside of the house.
There is still debris on about every road. Few trees are still standing. Where there would be plenty of Christmas decorations left on the shelves, this year they are just about bare. We decided to help a child that would have gone without gifts and trying to find something for her & her siblings was difficult. Then there wasn’t any wrapping paper left in Walmart.
The day after Thanksgiving my brother called to tell me my mom passed away. She had Parkinson’s Disease and after finding out that she couldn’t travel to go to my sister’s for Thanksgiving, I think she basically gave up. She was looking forward to that trip and then not being able to go just helped her already declining health. Her Parkinson’s had come on aggressively and she was having trouble walking. I talked to her on a Thanksgiving Day and let her know that I loved her and that my daughter & granddaughter loved her. Her friend & caretaker was with her when she passed and said she was asleep and when she passed she got a very peaceful look on her face. I was glad to find out she was not alone.
Yesterday I got the paperwork for one of the trusts my mom had. I already know settling the estate is not going to be easy. My mom put that a certain amount was to come out of my share and divided between my sister & brother. When I asked my brother about it, he said she told him that it was money that was loaned to us to fix a car and we didn’t get the car fixed. There were two separate amounts on a list. One of the amounts we had borrowed and my dad sent the money. I set up an automatic withdrawal to repay it and fully repaid that amount. The other amount is something we never borrowed. We did have problems with one car and my mom kept asking what it would cost and I didn’t know. My husband was going to fix it. He would not let me borrow money from my parents for it. If we had borrowed the money to fix the car, it would have gone into the car as we really needed two cars. Still do, but still only have one running. Plus the amount was way more than we would have needed to fix this particular car. I also have a copy of the list stating that it was paid in full with her signature.
The bank I was using at the time I paid my dad back, we haven’t used since 2007. Plus I don’t know if they would have the records prior to that since the hurricane. Our neighbor found that when she went to a branch out of our county, they could not see her balance because the branches in our county backup separately from the other local counties. Normally they would, but with everything down after the hurricane, they couldn’t access it. I have sent an email to the lawyer with a copy of the list with my mom’s signature. I told them I can’t sign the consent since I do not agree with the one section. I consent to my brother being the executor, but not the one stipulation. I told then that if need be, we would get a hand writing analysis to prove that she signed this note. My sister is going to be totally ticked off about this, but I am not going to be penalized for something that was paid back and one thing that I never borrowed.
About the only good thing is that the community has come together to help those in need of Christmas. Our local Salvage Santa, who has been doing this for over 35 years, was featured on Good Morning America Tell TJ. Last year Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs fame selected him for his Returning The Favor program.
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