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Four Months

So, today is 4 months since my mom passed.  It was a so so day.  I just kind of got through it.  Although that could be every day really.  I mean... It's just a super sinking feeling every time you re-realize you can't talk to your mom ever again.

Her name slowly gets further and further down my text message list...

Her last text to me was "Oi".

It was meant to be OK.  But her vision was going so she couldn't see what she was typing.

Every time I see it... My mind conjures up different things.

Oy.  Vey?  (That's something my mom said often) Oye oye oye... Aussie aussie ausssie Oye oye oye... (That's a camp thing the Australians say)

I don't know.

 

Of course my last message to her which she never saw was "I love you and I miss you".

That was just before she passed away.

It's weird.  I mean one might say that I was kind of prepared for this a little more than I would have been if I'd never met the mysterious 0202 girl that worked her way into my heart.

For example... It was because of her that I moved into my own apartment and got a grasp on budgeting and making soups for lunch to save money.  It was because of her that I started going out and about all over town... Went to church, made friends from that... Met my friend Melody and other people from that.  Found the Gryphon Cafe... or really started going to it often... Which I'm going to start going to again.

Started going to all the other little places that I now have to go to as coping type things to do around Philly.  I mean... When you think about it I have a whole list of places that I can go that I started going to the last few years that will kind of keep me grounded and feeling attached to the past sort of.  Or more just like feeling ok with the world without my mom.

Gryphon Cafe

Longwood Gardens

Valley Forge Park

Penns Woods Winery

All places that I would tell my mom about when she wanted to know what I was up to or where I was off to.  I'd tell her about it when she was in the hospital and I'd visit.

Plus I have my book to work on.  Which wouldn't exist without her mad photography skills to inspire it in the first place.

And then... the slowly going down the list part... I was kind of prepared for that because it happened with photography girl.

The whole process of her slowly cutting me out of her life little tiny piece my little tiny piece... Slowly losing her.  It just prepared me more for what happened 4 months ago.

So, if she was not meant to stay in my life in the first place... She was certainly meant to come into my life only to leave my life just before my mom did.

I mean, that's one way I'm trying to look at it.  That she was just there to "train" me.  Watching her fall further down my text message list, watching her fall further down my last email received in my inbox... Watching her fall further down my Facebook message list.

All things I did with my mom, and I'm still doing.  So she was just sent into my life in order to prepare me so that I would be better equipped to handle when my mom finally did leave me.  All of the things I did while having my own apartment...  Or while going to church when I did...

She's a good soul.  That girl.  As was my mom... She was a good soul.  And she left me as well prepared for my future...

I received more paperwork in the mail today about my trust.  It's pretty much going to be all resolved in the next few months.  Yes, there are some unknowns.  I have no idea if the amount left was anything where it was initially.  We'll probably never know that.  We won't know what the previous trustee really did.. Honestly it's weird, I don't hate him at all.  I mean... I don't trust him, and it's sad that I can't actually maintain a friendship with a man that was one of my grandfather's friends...

A guy that growing up I thought the world of and thought he was the coolest person ever when he would come over and we'd all swim in my grandparents' pool.

All he had to do was be honest.  That's it.  Just be honest.  Tell the truth.  Be kind... and honest.

It could have been REALLY neat to be able to meet up with him and have dinner and talk about my grandfather and grandmother with him.  But now that will never be possible because I can't trust him.

It just mostly makes me sad really.  Because I feel as though one of the reasons he took control of the trust was because he wanted us in his life.  But that's not the right way to do it.  If you want someone to be your friend...

You don't force them into your life.  You just let them be your friend of their own accord.

Maybe he needed the money as well.  I have no idea.  I really don't know.  I won't make any assumptions.  He did what he did and only he knows that and that will stay with him for the rest of his life knowing that he caused myself, my mom and my family a great deal of anger and frustration.

I mean I remember when I went out to California as a teen and I went out one night with him and his wife and we did hibachi and then went to see a movie and then went to Barnes and Noble and I bought a CD.

I even remember the movie we saw and the CD I bought.

Lost in Space was the movie and the CD was the self titled release from a band called Naked.  I was super into the radio single Mann's Chinese.

I listened to it on repeat all the way home from California back to Philly.  It still reminds me of that night out in Santa Barbara and that trip to visit my grandparents in Montecito.

But it also reminds me of his credit card being declined initially during our meal.  And then his wife saying that he just had to make a phone call and that his credit card had no limit on it.

What I really would love to know is... Was that night something you did because you truly wanted to spend time with me?  Or was it a way to get me to trust you when it came time to take over the trust?  Part of a grand master plan you had...

Here I am a 16 year old kid thinking of you as a role model... Only to have the last 10 years in the courts happen.

One should never have to compel accounting using court orders to see their own trust.  That's just not cool.  No one should ever hide something from anyone.  From day one you should have been there with accounting books for each one of us with exact details of where the money was spent, how it was spent, and when it was spent.

I shouldn't have had to wake up one morning to an email from a bank associate in Isle of Man claiming you were there to move 6 million dollars into the Bank of Ireland and that you would "stay as long as it took and do whatever it took to make it happen."

That wasn't the funny next-door neighbor and friend of my grandfather's that came over and said hello and hung out with us on Surf View Drive when I was a little kid.  You're one of the smartest people I'd ever met.  Your stories mesmerized me.  I thought you were the bees knees!

But now all I have of you is a box full of legal documents... and a memory of you saying to me "you never do anyone for anything for free".

I'm all about people knowing their worth and all that when it comes to doing work for people...

But not everyone shares that view... My thing is... during this whole time I've spent the last 10 years working with Catholic sisters... Who are the exact opposite in their view on the world.  They work tirelessly and some of them into their 90s.  They are the happiest people I've ever met.  Most of them live long and productive lives... and they have barely any personal belongings.

They are all about doing things for free.  Lots of things...

Community counts above all to them.

They teach love and compassion and hard work and community and forgiveness.

The most important thing in the world is relationships and the people you meet and being fair and kind to people you meet and honest.

The only thing that I can say for sure is that I don't know where the future will lead.

But that's something that everyone involved on their side can think about each night before they go to sleep.

What's done is done.

It's all about the seeds to me.  You can have an entire forest... And sometimes a forest fire will come through and wipe out some of it.  But some of the trees survive and they flourish and grow even taller.  So I will take what I get and use that to build my own investments back up.  And use the events that have occurred in the last 10 years going forward.  One never knows if this is simply the warm up before something bigger.

Who knows right?  I certainly don't know what will happen in the next 10 years.  It's possible that all of this court stuff will have simply familiarized me for the future of dealing with something bigger... It was simply training for some much more challenging adversaries.

One never knows.

What we are left with though is still a lofty trust that will help me and my siblings in our times of need.  We will not have to worry about any of our household or lifelong costs.

Most people struggle through life to pay a mortgage, afford a car payment... Pay off student loans...

I'll never know any of these hardships and for that I'm TREMENDOUSLY thankful.  If I need a new fridge or washer and dryer.  If I need a new car.  If I need help with costs of going back to school.

Same with my brother and sister.  We'll have the trust.

And as well this means whoever I end up marrying and having kids with will benefit from this as well though me.  We won't have to worry about how we will pay any bill.  If our water heater breaks or our roof needs to be replaced.  We can simply request from the trust to pay for it should our own finances not have sufficient means.  Which I'm hoping won't be the case... But one never knows.

I don't know who this future love of my life/lady of my dreams that I'll end up getting down on one knee and proposing to will be, and yes there are plenty of men that make WAY more money than what is even in our trust...

But the pool of people in the world that have enough assets to even qualify for wealth management as far as I know is relatively rare.  So... At least she'll know that she'll not have to worry or have fights about making ends meet with me.

We can just focus on our lives.  A gift that my mom and her parents left to us.  And that I hope to one day leave to my children and grand children.  Teach them how to properly invest and save for the future.

I can't help but think about it all... Why things go the way they do.  Why the trustee that I couldn't trust moved to South Florida in the same year along with the girl that swooped up my heart.

If my grandparents had never moved next-door... If they had never met and become friends.  I certainly wouldn't have met this girl.  Because the trust would have gone to my mom and her sister outright...  And then I most likely wouldn't have stayed at the job I've been at the last 10 years.

Maybe not though.  I mean... Who knows... The trust was dated 1991, and you met in 1972... Maybe the trust was your idea in the first place?  I would have loved to be able to playback, like watching a movie, every conversation that you had with my grandfather to know the truth about how much money they had...

To know exactly how things went down.

That's a whole other can of worms for another time.

Because if things had not gone the way they went... I wouldn't have a book in the works.  And one never knows, it might get turned into a movie and make boatloads of money.  No one can tell the future.

Could be the first of many books.  Could be the first of many movies.  Could be something bigger than myself.  I am but a humble servant of the universe trying to make sense of it all.

Trying to forgive...

And trying to remember my mom.  4 months... and it still feels like I talked to you just yesterday.

Just be kind and honest.  Put yourself in the other person's shoes... Try to figure out why they do the things they do and say the things they say.  Maybe they are just scared about the future.  Maybe they just want a friend.

Everyone on the planet just wants to be loved.  They just want a friend.  Sure they want money... But... Above all...

They want people that care and that they can trust.