Some Questions Answered, a Million More Piled On

by loveandothercrap

I decided to visit my dad yesterday before his passing. I’m glad I got to see him, say goodbye, etc, but at the same time it left me with a lot of emotions.

First off, he wasn’t really alert while I was there. I only got to say hi to him and hold his hand before he fell back to sleep, but my stepmother informed me last night he remembered I was there and that it made him smile.

Secondly, the sight of him was far worse than I expected. No one really told me what was going on with him. I knew he was dying, that he had cancer, but that was about it. When I got there, I was informed his kidneys failed, his lung collapsed. His body is filling up with fluid that they can’t remove fast enough. He can’t talk because he has a tube in his throat. My stepmother doesn’t expect him to make it through the week. He has made it 3 weeks while in the ICU, but I guess she would know better than anyone, other than his doctors, about his state.

Now comes the mind stressing stuff. My grandfather died March of 2004, and apparently in his will/trust/whatever, it states after 10 years, my father would have total control of the trust. However, if my dad dies before then, every last dime of it goes to me, since I’m the “heir.” My dad is trying to live until the end of March, just so my stepmother will get the money, so she “can be taken care of.” I had no idea about any of this until yesterday.

This is where my emotions are all over the board. As my stepmother said, there’s a high chance my dad isn’t going to make it until this cut off date. After 7 years of penny pinching, being homeless, starving, etc, it’ll be nice to have a monthly income from this trust fund. While I won’t be able to touch all of it until I am 40 years old, I do get this income. How much it is, I don’t know. I didn’t ask my stepmother and she didn’t tell me.

I’m also ashamed of myself for hoping my dad doesn’t make it until then. However, it’s not my fault that he didn’t save for a situation like this. It’s not my fault he got sick. It’s not my fault he spent all the original money he got after my grandfather’s death. It’s also not my fault he never gave me access to the college trust fund I was supposedly suppose to get when I turned 21.

I know he wants to make sure his wife is taken care of after his death, but honestly, he shouldn’t have put all his faith in this trust fund money. They obviously didn’t plan this out very well. He has to know he wasn’t immortal; he could have died at any point in the last 10 years, either for health reasons or an accident of some form. His wife is also a grown woman, who doesn’t have anyone relying on her to take care of them. She could easily get a job too, but as far as I know, she never did in the last 7 years.

Lastly, I’m a little hurt and upset that he wants to do all this for his wife, but couldn’t feel the need to do the same for me. I know we haven’t spoken for seven years, but everyone says he missed me, loved me still, etc. But the way I have been treated since he announced his cancer to the world makes me feel otherwise, to be honest. For the past 15 years he always put his wife over his own child. Sometimes, yes she may have been correct, but not always. Especially not when she was mentally, emotionally, and verbally abusing me. But he turned a blind eye to that. If I spoke up against her though, it was a whole other story. So now that he is still doing this, even while on his deathbed, I can’t help but feel a little hurt. I wish he understood this and saw it. Maybe he’ll see what it was like for me after he passes.

This whole situation is just tiresome. I went down there to get over everything, stop my stressing, but my stepmother only piled even more of it on top of me. I guess time will only tell, but I’ve never been a very patient person…