Have I got a sign on my head that says HERE IS A GULLIBLE PERSON WHO YOU CAN UNLOAD ONTO?
If I'm in a hurry I make some excuse to go, but sometimes I feel obliged to listen, like the other day!
A lady of around my age sat herself beside me and while I was eating my sandwiches, started telling me about a terrible thing that had happened to her husband.
Apparently, her very elderly mother in law had just died. There'd been a family split beforehand. Her husband and his eldest sister had been totally ostracized when their younger sister & husband "took over" their mother while she was frail and had persuaded her to sign everything over to them.
The youngest sister, husband and boys went to live in the house, which was now theirs and when the son or his eldest sister tried to visit their mother, they were not made welcome and sometimes not even permitted over the threshold.
On the occasions that they had managed to slip in secretly for a visit, their mother told them that she was not being treated very well, sometimes having no one to cook for her, and as she had poor eyesight she found things very difficult. She was left alone for hours at a time. She bitterly regretted what had happened.
Some time before she died, her son took her a birthday gift but was told by the family that he couldn't see her as she had the flu. The younger sister took the present and shut the door in his face. That was to be the last time he would ever visit the family house again.
Unknown to the son or his older sister, their mother had been put into a home, where she had died.
The older sister had received a phone call from a complete stranger, who told them about the death and which funeral directors to get into contact with.
However, not only did the younger sister take all the estate and keep the death a secret, she also prevented her siblings from seeing their mother before the cremation. Apparently, as executors of the Will she could do that.
The lady dabbed her eyes and told me her husband was now a broken man and not in the best of health himself.
I was quite overcome with this tale.
What a spiteful thing to do! Preventing them from seeing their mother and keeping the death a secret.
I was left wondering if this could ever happen to my family, when I get too old?
I walked away with indigestion!
