Disinheritance Hell
by Judy Bachrach
DECEMBER 18, 2008 TAGS:
A good friend, who happens to have been born wealthy, collected all four of her adult children together along with their spouses, and gave them a hard lesson in inheritance, which, I have to admit, shocked me. At least at first. Personally, I actually like her offspring. Some of them even work for a living, but only in a haphazard and pleasant sort of way which makes them great go-to companions: meaning if you have nothing better to do than go to the movies at 2 p.m. on a Tuesday – why, neither do they!
But I also know they’ve been counting on a sizable windfall when my friend dies, which we all realize will not be that far off.
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“Look, kids, I know you think I’m pretty rich, and I suppose I am,” was how my friend began her talk, which she had practiced for weeks before delivering it one warm evening in Aspen. “But you’ve all got nice trust funds, ski condos, and you’ve had the benefits of a first-class education. And I was happy to pay for those things. My best bet is that when I die I’ll be leaving an estate worth maybe $35 million, and I just want you all to know right now that you won’t be inheriting a penny.”
The bulk of her bequests, which included three houses, one in France, and a Lamborghini, my friend went on to say, would be going to her second husband, if he outlives her – as he is very likely to do. My friend has endured colon cancer and her heart has known better days. On another level, however, that heart has never been better. The second husband (who is not the father of her grown kids) basically herded her into rehab when a passion for cocaine overwhelmed her life, and he has been by her side during the many other health crises she has lately endured.
Was she right to tell her kids that they were written out of the will? And so bluntly? I’ve been mulling that over for a year, ever since she first recounted her daring foray into Disinheritance Hell. For months I couldn’t believe she’d bothered. My essential feeling about death is that for all its many drawbacks, it’s a fabulous way of delivering truth – and avoiding the consequences.
Yes, you may have promised late one insensate night to leave the Victorian etagere to acquisitive Cousin Gail, but being dead essentially voids that old tequila-fueled pledge – and it also means you don’t have to look at the expression on Gail’s face when she learns she’s been shafted. Told your nagging sister she’d inherit all your jewelry? Being dead means you get the last laugh, in a very metaphorical sort of way.
Best of all, the penning of what I like to call “silent wills” means that no face-to-face confrontation with family freeloaders is in the slightest bit necessary. A distant acquaintance who wrote in his will, “My nephew Alan is not to be allowed access to my home after my death, nor to remove any article from it,” undoubtedly experienced a frisson of satisfaction at the lawyer’s office, as well as for many years thereafter. Why, I always thought, elect yourself the bearer of bad news, when both law and tradition allow you to weasel out so effectively?
I guess because in most cases, it’s the smart, kind and honorable thing to do, especially where adult offspring are concerned. Adult children, after all, are in a different category entirely from other heirs. Generally speaking, we love them more than we do most people. And rationally or not, we hope that even after we’re dead – in fact, long after we’re dead – our great love will be returned.
Ensuring this kind of endless stream of posthumous affection may, I admit, be difficult if you’re cutting someone out of your will. And I think my friend in Aspen had that in mind when she addressed her grown kids. Before spilling the bad news she felt it necessary in her preamble to trot all she had done for them monetarily. Brilliant though this strategy was, however, it didn’t work.
After her family learned of her last wishes, every one of her kids had something to say – and much of what they said was uttered immediately, and in the most offensive way possible in front of everyone else. The youngest sputtered his outrage at some length, joined in his diatribe by his new wife.
The eldest, 10 minutes after the family conference was over, sidled up to the stepfather with her own special plea: “The 19th-century rosewood desk with the black and gold incising which is now sitting in your bedroom was actually my great-grandmother’s: Do you think you could leave it to me after you die?”
(Answer – positively inspirational and so useful in many circumstances – “I don’t know, dear. I’ll have to think about that.”)
But as time passed, the protests subsided and eventually relations were restored. Maybe, as my friend intended, her children began to dwell more on all she’d done for her family than on what she had denied them. Maybe even children of rich people decide that loud, obstreperous demonstrations of greed are in bad taste.
More likely, however, they realized that sparring and remonstrating wouldn’t do any good. One encouraging result: Most of them were far more amiable to the stepfather than had previously been the case. And interestingly (hope springs eternal…), a few grew impressively solicitous of their mother and her declining health.
I mention all this because another good friend had a completely different experience. Her own father, who lay dying for 18 months, never once told her during all her many visits to his sickbed that when he died she would be left nothing. His second wife, her stepmother, my friend discovered after his death, got everything he owned.
“Again and again people come up to me and ask me, ‘What did you do to make your father cut you out of his will?’” this friend tells me, the old helplessness gathering againt more than a decade later. “My thoughts when he died raced like a gerbil on a wheel. His legacy to me was people’s suspicions of my character. What did I do?”
“And if your father had mentioned during the long months of his illness that you’d be disinherited?”
“It would have been painful, but at least I would have known where I stood,” she says firmly. Maybe, she adds, her father could have added some emollient: perhaps he might have confided that her stepmother, who had pursued no career, badly needed the money. That might have soothed his daughter’s feelings. It might have made her feel less rejected.
Do you believe her?
Actually, I do. I think the real reason most of us put so much stock in wills is not because we have so much to leave behind -- most of us don’t. It’s because it’s our only chance to have a voice beyond the grave. Most of us want that voice to declare our love: for our kids and spouses, our lovers and friends. As ours happens to be a culture where material goods are considered an excellent way of expressing affection, we usually let our cash do the talking.
But if for some reason money or houses or even Lamborghinis are not going to the people you love – not because your affection has subsided, maybe for other reasons (like they don’t deserve it; or someone else deserves it more) – then I think those people have a right to know. While you’re still alive. While you can still explain.
I’m not saying they’re going to thank you for it. Very likely they’ve never thanked you for anything. And I’m not saying that after you tell them, they’ll feel lots better.
But you will.
But I also know they’ve been counting on a sizable windfall when my friend dies, which we all realize will not be that far off.
“Look, kids, I know you think I’m pretty rich, and I suppose I am,” was how my friend began her talk, which she had practiced for weeks before delivering it one warm evening in Aspen. “But you’ve all got nice trust funds, ski condos, and you’ve had the benefits of a first-class education. And I was happy to pay for those things. My best bet is that when I die I’ll be leaving an estate worth maybe $35 million, and I just want you all to know right now that you won’t be inheriting a penny.”The bulk of her bequests, which included three houses, one in France, and a Lamborghini, my friend went on to say, would be going to her second husband, if he outlives her – as he is very likely to do. My friend has endured colon cancer and her heart has known better days. On another level, however, that heart has never been better. The second husband (who is not the father of her grown kids) basically herded her into rehab when a passion for cocaine overwhelmed her life, and he has been by her side during the many other health crises she has lately endured.
Was she right to tell her kids that they were written out of the will? And so bluntly? I’ve been mulling that over for a year, ever since she first recounted her daring foray into Disinheritance Hell. For months I couldn’t believe she’d bothered. My essential feeling about death is that for all its many drawbacks, it’s a fabulous way of delivering truth – and avoiding the consequences.
Yes, you may have promised late one insensate night to leave the Victorian etagere to acquisitive Cousin Gail, but being dead essentially voids that old tequila-fueled pledge – and it also means you don’t have to look at the expression on Gail’s face when she learns she’s been shafted. Told your nagging sister she’d inherit all your jewelry? Being dead means you get the last laugh, in a very metaphorical sort of way.
Best of all, the penning of what I like to call “silent wills” means that no face-to-face confrontation with family freeloaders is in the slightest bit necessary. A distant acquaintance who wrote in his will, “My nephew Alan is not to be allowed access to my home after my death, nor to remove any article from it,” undoubtedly experienced a frisson of satisfaction at the lawyer’s office, as well as for many years thereafter. Why, I always thought, elect yourself the bearer of bad news, when both law and tradition allow you to weasel out so effectively?
I guess because in most cases, it’s the smart, kind and honorable thing to do, especially where adult offspring are concerned. Adult children, after all, are in a different category entirely from other heirs. Generally speaking, we love them more than we do most people. And rationally or not, we hope that even after we’re dead – in fact, long after we’re dead – our great love will be returned.
Ensuring this kind of endless stream of posthumous affection may, I admit, be difficult if you’re cutting someone out of your will. And I think my friend in Aspen had that in mind when she addressed her grown kids. Before spilling the bad news she felt it necessary in her preamble to trot all she had done for them monetarily. Brilliant though this strategy was, however, it didn’t work.
After her family learned of her last wishes, every one of her kids had something to say – and much of what they said was uttered immediately, and in the most offensive way possible in front of everyone else. The youngest sputtered his outrage at some length, joined in his diatribe by his new wife.
The eldest, 10 minutes after the family conference was over, sidled up to the stepfather with her own special plea: “The 19th-century rosewood desk with the black and gold incising which is now sitting in your bedroom was actually my great-grandmother’s: Do you think you could leave it to me after you die?”
(Answer – positively inspirational and so useful in many circumstances – “I don’t know, dear. I’ll have to think about that.”)
But as time passed, the protests subsided and eventually relations were restored. Maybe, as my friend intended, her children began to dwell more on all she’d done for her family than on what she had denied them. Maybe even children of rich people decide that loud, obstreperous demonstrations of greed are in bad taste.
More likely, however, they realized that sparring and remonstrating wouldn’t do any good. One encouraging result: Most of them were far more amiable to the stepfather than had previously been the case. And interestingly (hope springs eternal…), a few grew impressively solicitous of their mother and her declining health.
I mention all this because another good friend had a completely different experience. Her own father, who lay dying for 18 months, never once told her during all her many visits to his sickbed that when he died she would be left nothing. His second wife, her stepmother, my friend discovered after his death, got everything he owned.
“Again and again people come up to me and ask me, ‘What did you do to make your father cut you out of his will?’” this friend tells me, the old helplessness gathering againt more than a decade later. “My thoughts when he died raced like a gerbil on a wheel. His legacy to me was people’s suspicions of my character. What did I do?”
“And if your father had mentioned during the long months of his illness that you’d be disinherited?”
“It would have been painful, but at least I would have known where I stood,” she says firmly. Maybe, she adds, her father could have added some emollient: perhaps he might have confided that her stepmother, who had pursued no career, badly needed the money. That might have soothed his daughter’s feelings. It might have made her feel less rejected.
Do you believe her?
Actually, I do. I think the real reason most of us put so much stock in wills is not because we have so much to leave behind -- most of us don’t. It’s because it’s our only chance to have a voice beyond the grave. Most of us want that voice to declare our love: for our kids and spouses, our lovers and friends. As ours happens to be a culture where material goods are considered an excellent way of expressing affection, we usually let our cash do the talking.
But if for some reason money or houses or even Lamborghinis are not going to the people you love – not because your affection has subsided, maybe for other reasons (like they don’t deserve it; or someone else deserves it more) – then I think those people have a right to know. While you’re still alive. While you can still explain.
I’m not saying they’re going to thank you for it. Very likely they’ve never thanked you for anything. And I’m not saying that after you tell them, they’ll feel lots better.
But you will.
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