My mother of sound mind at the age of 86 changed her will. Her previous will was to sell her house after she passes and divide the proceeds with her 5 children. My mother changed her will to reflect her son with special needs live in the house with an elder sibling after she passes. Of note, elder sibling already lives with my mother since my mother cannot live alone. Elder sibling is the caregiver and the only caregiver for my mother. This has caused major sibling conflict. Two of the siblings feel my mother should have told them of her interventions to change her will. I disagree. It is my mothers choice alone to make whatever changes she wants to make. It gives her great comfort that the special needs son is taken care of after her passing.
My mother had some grievance against me, IDK to this day, and never will know what it was.
She kept 'encouraging' me to read her will, prior to her passing. I opted to not do so, until one day when i went to pick her up and she was running late. As I had her permission to read the will, I did.
On a sheet of lined notebook paper was a simply "B owes the estate $1500. She must pay that to the estate to be then split among the surviving children".
What the heck? The note wasn't dated or signed. I called my son-the-lawyer and asked him if this was legal. He said "Mom, it's a posthumous FU. Not legal if not signed and notarized".
My feelings were deeply hurt and I never did ask her what that was for. My YS who had scammed about $75K out of mom and dad and never repaid it was not mentioned. Just me.
To this day, though she has been gone almost 3 years, I get a little shiver of sadness, Obv I had done something she found 'unforgiveable' and had assigned a monetary amt to it.
I did not repay the estate. Instead, I kept $2K to pay for a dinner out with my kids & grands and gave $10,000 to my YB who had cared for mom in his home for 22 years.
It's one thing if you've already received an inheritance, it's another if you're being not-so-subtly scolded.
Your kids will remember a lot about you, and they will certainly remember the small slights you put in as your final words to them.
Wish I could say I was totally 'over this', but I'm not. It wasn't about the money, it was about not knowing what I had done so wrong.
And yes, all my sibs knew about this and were horrified, on my behalf. $12K wouldn't have changed my life one iota. Knowing my mom had some kind of issue with me has really kind of haunted me.