Next month, my mother and I are going to have lunch at her favorite Italian restaurant, where we will raise a glass to a new development in our family.
It’s not about a birthday or a new job, but about changing your will at the nearest lawyer’s office.
Until now, my 83-year-old mother had always said that her money should be shared equally between her three children. Today, convinced by me, she has agreed to change her will so that I am the main beneficiary. My inheritance will be taken over by my two sisters, who will see their share reduced.
Convinced by me, Mom agreed to change her will so that I would be the primary beneficiary.
Far from feeling guilty about my actions, I couldn’t be happier and I have no sympathy for my sisters.
I know what you might be thinking, but I am not some stone-hearted, unscrupulous schemer taking advantage of an elderly woman while backstabbing her siblings. In reality, I am a loving but exhausted daughter who, for the past five years, has had to put her own life on hold while I dealt with the increasing needs of an elderly father with a myriad of health issues.
Meanwhile, my sisters have pretty much been able to get by. Forget pitching in with everything from hospital visits to helping her around the house; they can go months without seeing her. So I think it’s only fair that Mom’s will reflect our respective contributions (or lack thereof).
These days, not a day goes by that I don’t spend some time helping her. If I’m not taking her to medical appointments, I’m making them or chasing them down. I can be on the phone for two hours just so I can see where she is on the waiting list for the hip replacement she so desperately needs.
I think it’s only fair that Mom’s will reflect our respective contributions, or lack thereof.
Maybe I’ll email the social care team at your local authority to complain about the stair lift they were supposed to install in May but didn’t.
When the endless rain finally stopped a few weeks ago to bring us a few days of welcome sunshine, my social media feeds were full of friends and family enjoying garden drinks, picnics and trips to the beach.
As for me, I barely went outside. I was either in a car or waiting in the stifling hospital outpatient departments while I drove my mother to a series of appointments.
I gave him an X-ray of an arthritic knee, an MRI of a shoulder, a session with a physiotherapist and a check-up with his GP. In the meantime, I unpacked the groceries, watered the plants, changed the beds and cleaned the bathroom.
It was at this point that my frustration reached its peak and I told my mother that she had to change her will in my favour. My mother is a widow and lives alone. She used to be very self-sufficient, but now she feels miserable and unhappy because she can no longer do many things for herself.
Things started to go downhill five years ago when he slipped on ice while going to post a letter. He broke his arm and hip and seriously injured his back and shoulder. Since the mailbox was only a couple of minutes from the house, he didn’t have his mobile phone with him.
Unable to get up, she lay on the icy pavement for 40 minutes until a passerby saw her and called an ambulance. She never fully recovered, either physically or emotionally, and lost much of her confidence.
The mother is a widow and lives alone. She used to be very self-sufficient, but she can no longer do many things for herself.
Unable to do anything for herself, I went to live with her for several weeks after the accident, because I wanted to but also because she was the only one who offered.
My older sister, Fiona, a mother of three adult children who have long since left home, has been useless even though she only works part-time and lives closer to Mum than I do.
When her children were younger, Fiona was happy to leave them with their mother for a week. Now, her adult children rarely see their grandmother, and my sister doesn’t bother to either. The older and frailer their mother becomes, the more Fiona distances herself.
The only time she helped me was when I called her crying and begged her to go to Mom’s house to see if she was okay after the fall alarm went off and she didn’t answer calls from the care company. I was working and it would have taken me hours to get there.
Fiona left, reluctantly. Luckily, Mum was fine. She had accidentally pressed the alarm button while sitting in the garden and hadn’t heard the phone ringing in the house.
Instead of feeling relieved, Fiona was furious that it had all been “a waste of time.” It was as if she would have preferred that Mom had gotten hurt so that the trip would have been worthwhile. That was in February and she hasn’t visited Mom since.
We used to be incredibly close, but Fiona’s attitude has soured our relationship to the point where we barely speak now. I’m willing to give Amy, my younger sister, a little more freedom. Her kids are still young and she lives three hours away from Mom. She calls her several times a week, tries to visit at least once a month, and has expressed gratitude for all I do. But that doesn’t make carrying the load alone any easier.
Unlike Fiona and Amy, I don’t have children, and I suspect that’s why they think it’s easier for me to be the responsible mom, even though they both receive financial support from their working husbands, a luxury I don’t have as a divorcee.
I am currently in a permanent state of heightened anxiety, I have no interest in dating or finding a new partner, which is fine since all my free time is spent on caregiving duties.
I could ask for outside help, but the thought makes me nervous. I know there are incredibly kind people out there, but older people living alone are vulnerable. A previous cleaner stole money from Mum’s purse. Mum caught her, but was afraid to confront her and let her walk away with the money. That cleaner had been recommended by a local charity for older people. Not long ago, a decorator tried to charge her an exorbitant amount to paint a bookcase, demanding the money up front.
Every time I help my mother, she asks me, “Are you sure? This won’t interfere with your work, right?” I always tell her, “Of course not,” because I don’t want her to be afraid to ask for help.
But the truth is that as a freelance marketing executive, I am losing money as I am no longer available for short-term projects.
Earlier this year I was offered a quick job that would have paid me £2,000, but I had to take my mum to a doctor’s appointment she had been waiting a year for and I had to turn it down.
I explained to Mom, a little tearfully, that while it was fair at the time, now her will needed to be corrected.
For her, public transport is too big a problem and the last time she tried to get a taxi, the driver was in a bad mood and impatient with the time it was taking her to get into the car.
My situation is not unique. There are millions of people like me: the child who has become the default caregiver for his parents, whose siblings are happy to let him shoulder that burden. I have two friends who are now estranged from their siblings because they simply cannot forgive them for not lending a helping hand.
In the end, my conversation with Mum about her will went much easier than I had expected. Her estate is not worth a fortune (she owns a three-bedroom house currently worth £280,000), but for a couple of years I felt a growing resentment that my sisters were getting the same amount as me despite my huge financial loss.
Over a cup of tea, I asked my mother if she still had the same will she had drawn up all those years ago. Yes, she did. I explained, somewhat tearfully, that while it had been fair at the time, it now needed to be amended.
She nodded and said she had been thinking the same thing, and asked me what I thought would be a more reasonable split. I told her I should get half, not a third, and she readily agreed. I called Amy that night and she was completely supportive of the plan, even offering to let me have her room as well, which I declined.
I have no intention of telling Fiona and I don’t think Mom would like the confrontation either.
The bottom line is that if she had behaved better, we wouldn’t be making that trip to the lawyer.
*Names have been changed.
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