Family fued and a funeral. What should I do?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Recently in my family, a situation has developed. It has apparently been there for a while, but my brother and I weren’t made aware of it until over the weekend. Unfortunately, it’s money related and even more unfortunately, it’s exposed my father’s sister as a money grubbing fraud. It’s a long soap opera, so I won’t get into details, but as a result, I feel that I have one remaining obligation to this family as it stands now. When the time comes that my grandmother (who has no knowledge of what’s going on, although she really should, even if it will hurt her deeply* ) passes away, I feel duty bound to pay my respects to my father’s mother. I don’t know how far my involvement should go, though. After the funeral, the Casey family will extend only as far as my brother, as far as I’m concerned. I will want nothing to do with the remaining relatives of my dad. My brother is of the same mindset.

In your opinion, at the funeral, should my brother and I include ourselves in the receiving line and play the “role” of first grandchildren as if there is no chasm dividing the rest of the family, should we stay but stand together seperately from the rest, or should we quietly go in, pay our respects, and leave?

I do not want to cause a scene, but the rest of the family will know how we feel by then. Most of them know now. I frankly don’t care what the relatives think, but I would like to do the right thing by my grandmother and father.

As impartial parties, what do you think my options are?

*My brother and I are still deciding if she should be told. She hasn’t trusted my aunt for some time, and this will only validate her suspicions. On the other hand, she may not understand completely what’s going on and knowing may do more harm than good.

2

If indeed you do wish to honor the life of the deceased then that’s one time that everything else, including family disputes, should be put aside.

3

I’d say play the role. It’s about your grandmother, not the issues. Make no mention of them at the funeral, and if anyone brings it up, change the subject. It’s the classy thing to do, plus if you make any comments at the funeral, you’ll come off as a jerk. Let the others do that.

4

You are all family, and should be have as such at the funeral. What you do after that is unrelated to the act of paying respects to someone.

5

I’m afraid that my aunt would be the one to do that.

Would it be out of line for me to ask my wife to just come in, pay respects, and leave with my son (he’s 5 now, and really has no idea what’s going on. I’d like to keep it that way)? She can attend the mass with me the next day, the boy can go to school. I don’t want them to be involved if Aunt decides to makes a scene. She’s got a bit of drama queen in her. When dad died, it appeared that she was trying to “out-grieve” mu mom. Who knows what she’d try and do here. I’d rather take the potential abuse, not them.

This has really been screwing with my head since I found out. The disbelief, anger, hurt, embarassment, etc. I guess you can’t pick your family…

6

No, unfortunately you can’t pick your family, or control what they do. I see no point in informing your grandmother - if there is nothing she can do to remedy the situation, and it will only cause her pain, don’t tell her. I agree with sheltering your son from the sight of someone acting the ass at a funeral.

But now you’ve got me really curious - just what did your aunt do? Some of us don’t mind long drawn out stories…

7

There’s an inheritance from my grandfather’s sister (Aunt M). Aunt P was put in charge to distribute it among the three families (dad’s, hers, uncle’s). Early last year.

There have been several meetings about it, none of which were my brother and I informed about or involved in.

To date, my Aunt P’s family (including her two kids, two grandkids) has gotten upwards of $35K (at least) over the last year, my uncle’s family (including three kids) has gotten over $25K over the course of the last year. My brother and I (what’s left of dad’s family) will be getting $2,000 each, “soon” :rolleyes: . Our kids get nothing.

To top it off, we’re told that my grandmother is broke. There’s a sweet deal with the sale of her house to my cousin (Aunt’ Ps daughter) arranged by P who has POA for both Aunt M and grandma, in which $10K will be gifted back to cousin after the house is bought for below value. Not enough below to throw up flags, but on the open market, it could be sold for more. My grandfather and I had a similar deal when I bought his house; no gift back, but the house was bought for $5k less than appraised value. The proceeds supplemented his pension to pay for his room at the assisted living facility. There wasn’t much left when he passed away, so we donated it to the residence.

Why money is being distributed like this when our grandmother is broke is beyond us (well, at least beyond my brother and me). She will see nothing from the sale of the house, as it’ll go to pay rent at the nursing home she’s at.

We’re embarassed by this, angry that we weren’t involved in the decision making, and hurt that this has been going on for over a year and we just find out about it.

If my father were alive, none of this would be an issue, as he would have had POA for his mom and his aunt. He would have put that inheritance in a seperate account and taken care of them first and foremost. If there was any left, then it would have been distributed to the family, evenly.

It’s not about the money to us (brother and I). It’s about priorities and fairness. My brother and I are not comfortable with the gift (disproportionate as it is) knowing that grandma is broke, but we’ve been told not to feel guilty about it. Apparently it eases my uncle’s guilt, knowing that he’s partly to blame over this for not standing up for what’s right. It’s too late for us to stand up for it, since the wrongs have already been done. Declining the money just means it goes into my Aunt P’s pockets.

I don’t want to be part of this any more than I already am, and I don’t want these people to have anything to do with my kid. We try to teach him that a family is to be trusted and can be counted on to do what’s right by each other. But now I have this fiasco of an example to show him. I don’t want him influenced by this at all.

8

If she’s executor and if she’s supposed to be distributing the estate equally among the three families, according to the terms of a will, then she’s violating her duty and legal steps should be taken.

If she’s the sole heir and she’s sharing (however unequally) out of the goodness of her heart, that’s something else.

If any gifts to your grandmother would become an asset that would just be turned over to the nursing home, that’s something else.

9

Aunt M is alive, so these assets aren’t covered under the terms of the will. As far as I know, there are minor, equal bequeaths (? is that the right word?) to all the kids, grandkids, etc. in her actual will (assuming that it hasn’t been changed recently), but this is seperate from that. This is something where Aunt M said “Here’s $XXX, divide it among the families. I don’t want the state to get it when I die.” IANAL, but I doubt she’s really doing anything illegal. I don’t think it’s what Aunt M had in mind when she said divide it, though.

10

This is why people should set up trusts. Does Aunt M know what’s going on?

11

Probably not. She’s not really all there, either.

I just never thought there were so many vultures in my family. I really thought that their care would be priority.

12

My family had feuds on both sides (my mother vs her brother, my father vs his sister). One was about land and the other was about inheritance. I know how ugly it gets. Without getting into the whole thing, if my grandfather had set up a trust for his wife, rather than just leaving it to her, things would have been nice and friendly between both the siblings, but as it turned out there was a feud, a lawsuit, etc., and lots of very hurt feelings. If people would plan ahead rather than putting their faith into people who might be, or might become, incompetent, or who are too easily influenced, there would be far fewer of these kinds of situations.

Anyhow, good luck, I know it hurts. :frowning:

13

Some people are so greedy. :frowning: I can’t imagine taking money that could be going to help an elderly relative. I’d give anything I could to help my grandma live a comfortable life.