It was nice seeing all the family members going to see the mom. It was really good seeing the long list of people who wanted to see their mom. It showed just how loved she was. Seeing the smile on her face as she spent time with cousins and aunts she hadn't seen in a long time made the world of difference. Keeping the mom's day full and busy was good. It wasn't always a good thing giving their mom a lot of free time to think. Thinking always led to crying and that was one thing everyone hated seeing. Seeing their mom sad and crying broke everyone's heart. She'd been through so much and nobody wanted to see her hurting.
As the days passed and with each visitor that went it gave the husband the opportunity he needed to leave the room. It was as if he loved when the room had people in it so he could excuse himself. He'd say hi to everyone and then quickly say he was going to get coffee or that he needed to get something from the car. Those "tasks" even if done together should only take 10 or 15 minutes tops, but the husband would disappear for hours at a time. The daughters were the first to take notice. At first they kept it to themselves and only talked among themselves. They needed each other to talk to to make sure they weren't the only ones noticing that he was always gone. Once they saw that others who went to visit started to notice and ask where he was they knew they weren't crazy for everything they'd noticed. That it wasn't just because of their dislike for the man. What they were seeing was real. As hard as it was they both didn't bring it to the mother's attention.
It wasn’t long before their mom began to notice that her husband wasn’t around more and more. When her sister in law and brothers would ask where the husband was she’d answer she didn’t know. When someone new would show up for a visit and asked where the husband was she’d again say she didn’t know. The youngest daughter would swear to it that as each person asked her mom where her husband was and she had to say she didn't know the sad look on her face grew.
After her husbands absence was brought to her attention enough times their mom began asking for her phone. She'd call him to see where he was. He didn't answer her calls more than he'd answer them. Oh did that infuriate the youngest daughter. Seeing her mom have to repeatedly hang up her phone because he ignored her call was inexcusable. She’d take it upon herself to keep calling him until he answered. She’d text him too. Why wasn’t he answering? He knew his wife was dying, spending time with her while she was awake should be his top priority. But it wasn’t. He would continue to disappear for hours at a time up until the day she passed away.
The times that their mother would get a hold of her husband on the phone when he wasn’t around she'd tell him to get his butt into the room. (If you were lucky enough to know her you knew she was a very feisty demanding woman. Always had been.)The husband would say okay he’d be right there, but he hardly ever showed up when he said he would. The mom would call again and still he wouldn't show up. It shouldn’t take that long to get upstairs if you were down at the cafeteria taking a break right? (It was later found out that the husband was sneaking out of the hospital quite often to do who knows what with who knows who and wouldn’t tell anyone he was leaving.)
Why would someone do that knowing their wife would be gone soon? That at any moment something could happen? I’ll tell you why, he wasn’t all that worried about it. He was more worried about going to ATM's and pulling money out of the mother's bank and cleaning the house that no one was dirtying. If he didn't think there was anything wrong with leaving the hospital on numerous occasions why keep it a secret? Don't you usually keep what you're doing a secret if you have something to hide? If what you're doing is somehow wrong?
The husband did finally stop going to work after they were told that the mom wouldn't make it much longer. That surprised everyone in their little family. It’s believed by many that the only reason that the husband stopped going to work was because his boss told him not to go in anymore, that his place was next to his wife. (Lets remember that the husband works with his son in law so the son in law is privy to a lot of information. He hears and is told a lot from co-workers.) It wasn’t the children asking him to stop going to work because they often made it a point to tell him that he needed to be with his wife and that hadn't worked before. He would fight them hard about wanting and needing to go to work. He’d say that he needed to save his vacation days and HAD to work.
He said he was worried about his job, which was understandable, anyone would be under any other circumstance, but this man was on FMLA, Family Medical Leave Act, as was the oldest daughter, which meant you couldn’t be fired during your leave of absence. What the husband really worried about was the fact that once his vacation days were over he would no longer get paid on the days he didn’t go in. The thing that made everyone upset was that they were all missing work at this point and everyone was feeling it in their bank accounts but him. He was the only one who was still making money while being in the hospital, yet he was the only one complaining.
There were many arguments had that he needed to stop thinking about money, that the wife wouldn’t be around much longer and that he wouldn’t have to miss much work for much longer. The husband would say okay the kids were right, but would start right back up again in a few days wanting to go to work. That was his routine. Maybe there was something about his job that no one knew and that was why he felt the need to always want to be there when his place was next to his bed ridden wife.
One morning after the two daughters arrived at the hospital and the husband excused himself to "get coffee" their mom called both daughters to her hospital bed and let them know how much she loved them and how bad she knew everything was getting.
She went on to say she wasn’t dumb, that she could sense the tension in the room when the husband was around. She turned to her youngest daughter and said she knew she held grudges and to try not to keep doing that. She said she wasn’t a stupid woman, that she knew more than they thought she did.
She said she knew the type of man her husband was. She’d known him to be that man for many years. She apologized for how one sided he could be. She said he just needed to say the dumb stuff that he said and then he would get over it and apologize. She asked the daughters to understand that about him.
She continued to say he was a good man, but his childhood had taken the best parts of him away.
The mother then went on to say that they knew how much she loved to help them and that it made her sad that she wasn’t going to be around to do that anymore.
Both daughter began to tear up hearing their mom talk like that. Everyone knew what was happening, but actually talking about it wasn't something any of them were comfortable with. Admitting the end was just too painful.
She said that she wanted them to know that there was a safety deposit box with money and jewelry in it. She turned to the youngest daughter and told her she already knew about the safety deposit box because it was in her name. The daughter nodded because yes she knew about the box, she’d helped her mother and the husband get it years prior. They'd even gone multiple times to check on the contents of the box and count and make sure all the money was accounted for because it was in fact A LOT of money. The last time they'd gone to the bank and counted the money in the box it was at nearly $68,000.
The money in the box was supposed to be saved for her and her husband's retirement. They had both put in money throughout their years together. Even though it was meant as their retirement the mother would sometimes ask the daughter to take her to get money out for things she wanted and didn’t want the husband to know about. She couldn’t use her bank account money because he checked it all the time to make sure nothing was spent that he didn’t know about.
Their mother loved going out of town on family trips to water parks and wanted all her kids to go even when the kids couldn’t always afford it. That’s when they’d go to the bank and pull money out of the box and make sure everyone was able to go. She’d pay for either the tickets for the water park or the hotel rooms or she would give them each a couple hundred dollars as spending money for her grand-kids.
Their mom always said not tell the husband because he would be upset and tell her no. She always said what good was it to have all this money collecting dust when it could be used to make memories. You can’t take the money with you when you die.
On another occasion she’d taken money out to help her daughter pay for her first wedding. The mother said she wanted to make sure the daughter had the best wedding she could have and she wanted it to be a brag worthy wedding. It made the mom feel good paying for her daughter's wedding dress. She said she was happy to be in a place where she could help put together one of her kids weddings. That too was kept from the husband. There was no way that man would have let his wife help with money the way she had. All he had allowed his wife to help with was 500.00. He said that was more than enough.
It was sad that the mom felt the need to keeps money secrets from her husband. Especially since it was her money too. She wasn't trying to spend his money, it was just as much hers as it was his, but you couldn't say that in front of the husband. He'd shoot you down and say it was all his money.
That’s the type of loving and giving woman she had always been. That’s the type of mother that both her daughters wanted to become. One where money shouldn’t be hoarded, but used to make life easier and to make beautiful memories with. She was such a beautiful woman. Those were the things that her children would always remember about her and that made their mom happy.
The mother continued the conversation with her daughters and told them that she had money in her bank account and she wanted them to split the money she had in there 4 ways. She said through tears that that was all she was going to be able to help them with. It made her sad that she couldn’t do any more and wanted them to use it wisely.
This wasn't the first time the youngest daughter had heard of this money in her account. It was the same account the husband told her about hours after they found out the news about their mom. This was the account that he had already been pulling money out of everyday. The money he was pulling out was the same money that their mom wanted them to split 4 ways. Why was he already taking money out of the account? Was he making sure there was less in the account to split? Everything the husband did was sneaky. This was something that would have to be shared with the sister.
The mom went on to explain how much was in the bank and let them know that she'd already talked her their brother about it. The youngest daughter asked if she could say it into her phone so there would be a record of her wish and so that her husband would know what she wanted and she just shook her head. She said that wasn’t necessary. She said she’d already spoken to her husband about this and he knew it was what she wanted.
The daughter was still skeptical about it and knew that the husband wasn’t going to part with the money easily, but decided to drop it for her mother's sake. In hind's sight that was the wrong way to go. This was one of those things that definitely shouldn't have been pushed aside to deal with once their mom was gone. The mother went on to say her husband was a good man and would not go against her wishes. The daughters said okay and that was the last time they spoke about it until after her passing.
They thought about talking about it with the husband, but they were pretty sure it would end up in an argument and he'd already kicked one daughter out of the hospital before and threatened to call the cops so tension involving money was the last thing any of them needed. As sad as it was to think about he was the one in charge of everything and if he was angry enough he could give them a hard time attending her funeral when the time came and that was the last thing they wanted.
At the end of all this if they got the money then good, that's great, but if not then that was fine too. Money was not what they were thinking or worrying about right now. They just wanted to be with their mom.
Start Chapter 11 - Transferring Money