Home is good.

Did anyone feel my head pop off last week?
I went with Xan down to my mom's house. Xan is really feeling the loss of all her grandparents and wants to spend as much time as she can with her last remaining grandparent, my mom. Because these are precarious times for my mom I went with Xan. Can't trust my mom to drive the 4 hours to bring Xan back by herself nor is she willing to put Xan on a train by herself so I travelled with Xan.
It was nice in some ways. I brought all of our receipts for the 2005 and 2006 and sorted them on the dining room table for 2 days. That gave Xan some good alone time with Granny. We went out for chowder. We sorted a bunch of stuff that was on the dining room shelves. It was fun to hear all the family stories about where this & that came from and we put little pieces of tape with peope's names on it on things that Granny knows she wants that certain person to have. That was very sweet.
My head popped off later when I asked my mom if I could see her will. She told me this summer that I am the executor and I wanted to see the will so that I have an idea of what I'm supposed to do when the time comes. She told me it was all in a file in a drawer put there by my father. So one morning while Xan is sleeping and Mom is off at cardiac therapy I go in the drawer and find the file.
No big deal I take it to the dining room table with my breakfast to look it over. There is a will that was made in 1997. My brother, Mark is the executor. Fine with me. My head is still intact. A bit confusing because she has said for months that I am the executor but that's OK. I'm good with Mark being in charge. I put everything back in the file. Mark is in charge I don't need to look anymore.
Mom gets home as she is having her breakfast I bring up the subject of the will. She is surprised. There was a scandalous family incident in 1997 and my parents were angry with Mark and they made someone else the executor. I take out the will and low and behold there is a codicil at the end. In 1997 my parents made me co-executors with my brother David. That's when my head popped off. Right there in the kitchen. It must have been a pretty impressive sight for my mother.
David is my oldest brother. He is an alcoholic and drug abuser. He is my rapist. He is the one who gets into a drunken argument with his girlfriend, loads a gun, hands it to her saying, "If you hate me so much than you should kill me!" and she takes the gun and shoots herself in the head right in front of him. Yeah, my head took a trip to the moon. It took my voice with it and I was speechless.
Later that day I tell my mom that this needs to be changed. I can't be co-executors with 'him'.
The next day I open up the file again and find out that I am co-trustees of the trust with 'him' and the 'he' is the one who gets power-of-attorney. It's strange to me how I had the whole file and yet I discovered all this in stages. I guess I could only take a bit at a time to keep my sanity.
First of all, what posessed my parents to think that David is a good choice for any of this is beyond me. I do not feel malice toward him. I wish him no harm. I've had lots of therapy and I'm in a good space in my life. But really, he is not the one to be in charge of anything.
Mom and I talked about it. I looked her in the eye and said, "He is the one who raped me for a long time Mother. I am not doing this with him. You get that?" She got it. I didn't even talk to her about why they chose him. That's their baggage.
She say's she is going to change the will and my brother Mark and I are going to be co-executors. I talked it over with Mark and we are good with that.
I just can't get out of my head that it's been ten years that the will has been this way. All the time I have led a happy existence and if anything had happened to my parents I would have been plunged into hell. All that time I never knew. I find it very disturbing.
I'll tell you though, I couldn't wait to leave. Couldn't wait to come home to my household. My loving nucleus.
Yesterday I spent almost all day in my jammies puttering around and watching stupid TV.
Home is good.