Money

This is a discussion I avoid at almost all costs.  Money.  Yet I am surrounded by it. 

Literally.  By way of my profession.

My family was wealthy.  So now that they are gone, I am left with a mess.  It's not a mess to most people but rather an inheritance.  I have now stood up the estate attorney four times.  I make the appointment and then I don't go.  His office assistant drives me crazy.  She probably is a pretty nice person and she probably wouldn't drive me crazy if I showed up for appointments. 

I get in my car.  I drive down the freeway.  I have even made it to his office.  And then I break out into a cold sweat, my head begins to spin, and my heart pounds with the anticipation of finality.  And then I leave.  I just can't do it.  I can't go in and legally acknowledge what has happened.

My family is gone.  A family that I never quite had in the first place.  So if I never had them, did I really loose them at all?  Perhaps my loss is bigger, even different than just their physical presence.  My loss was the chance for a caring mother; a loving father; a best friend for a sister.  I never had these things.  But I hoped for them.  I begged for them.  I even prayed for them.

Well meaning people offer me encouragement and ideas for what to do with these funds.  I nod my head and listen but each idea hits a dead spot in my brain and travels to a broken part of my heart.  Money doesn't make this better.  And while this would be a welcome addition for most; it is a painful insult to my own existence because I did not die.

I survived and they did not.  And for walking through hell I get the prize.  When I sign those papers I will make this official.  The black and white proof of their end and perhaps my own twisted beginning.  I want to say that this is good.

But all I feel is that money makes a dirty and really shitty band-aid.