Our Small Support System
My parents aren’t together. I haven’t seen my dad since a huge to-do occurred when I was 10, and I’m 18 now. That said, my mother stays in contact with him, because I have a severely disabled sister who often requires dual parental consent on forms. Her favorite method of contact is email, though they often call and she updates him on my sister.
Now, don’t be too harsh on my mother for this, but her password for her email is my sister’s birthday. So, it’s not too much of a stretch for the father of my sister to guess it. This is where it got creepy. My mother began to notice that whenever she received emails from her lawyer talking about decisions she made on my sister’s behalf (she has right of attorney), that my father would call the next day.
He would then suddenly go on a rant about the decision my mother just made. They’re things he’s actually against; he’s not just picking a fight. But strange how he always ends up choosing just the right time to rant about these things, huh? Anyway, recently, my family’s been going through some stuff. All my extended family are narcissists, alcoholics, criminals, etc.
So the ONLY support system we’ve ever really had has been my mother’s two best friends. For clarification, one is my godmother, the other is my honorary “aunt”. When I was little, my mother made me memorize both their numbers. She told me if anything happened to her, I was to call them right away, and they’d get me away from my dad before he even had a chance to fight for custody.
I lived with one of them during my rebellious teenage period. My mother didn’t understand mental illness—my aunt, who had a child with mental illness, was truly my savior at this time. The other one got us away from my father the instant she found out about his mistreatment. With a literal day’s notice, she flew out to our state, spent the day packing with us, then flew with my brother and I across the country.
We’d only booked tickets the night before, so my mother had to catch the next flight with my sister. They are our saving grace. So all this said, I always knew if something happened to my mom, I’d have them to fall back on; my mother told me that I’d go stay with my godmother, and my sister would go live with my aunt. Well, the worst has happened.
My mother’s sick. She’ll likely pass in the next year, or recover and live until 100. But my godmother and aunt are also sick too. They both have end-stage cancer and are terminal. My godmother is in her last six weeks. I’ve found all this out in just the past month, so it’s been a lot to deal with. As such, my mother had to update her will.
Power of attorney over my sister now goes to me, and everything is split equally between my brother and I—my brother is an addict and has responsibility issues. She took my dad out of it completely, knowing that if something does happen, I’ll need all the resources I can get—again, I’m only 18 years old, have an addict brother, zero support system to speak of, and a severely disabled sister.
Her lawyer sent the updated will through to her over email. It all came crashing down almost instantly. The next day, my father called her, madder than he’s been in years, or so my mother said. He spiraled into a rant, about how his “co-worker” has just been dragged through the mud by his ex-wife, who took him out of her will, and how evil is that?
Who could do that? He told her that the best thing she could ever do was give him 100% of her estate upon her passing. This man, who has done NOTHING for me, my sister, my brother, or my mother, thinks he should get EVERYTHING FROM HER?? I’m EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD. My sister is a mentally disabled, severely physically handicapped, brain damaged 22-year-old who needs 24-hour constant care.
My brother is an ADDICT who I don’t see for weeks on end. And he thinks he should get 100% of my mother’s estate (which is a plot of land and roughly $60,000 to both me and my brother) and leave me with my sister, no house over our heads, no food on the table? Screw off. I’m a teenage girl who’s enduring my world crumbling beneath my feet.
I have no idea what I’m going to do if something happens. I have no concept of how to even begin to deal with the task that’s been thrown at me. But at least with what my mother would leave me, I’d be able to learn. But he wants to leave us with nothing? Get screwed. Needless to say, my mother’s lawyer cut all communication through email.
He also told her to immediately make a new account. She doesn’t know how, so she gave me the phone and he told me what to do. She and I are now the only ones with the passwords, because I’d need to get records of everything in case of her passing.