Not all families act like that. When my husband’s mom died, everyone was so respectful. She had made her wishes known and the brothers and sisters followed those wishes. No one was greedy. It was kind of strange, but my husband’s family is like that. They are drinkers, but totally respectful of each other.
I wonder, does the crazy create the greed or does the greed create the crazy?
I have no idea. I think the crazy just creates problems. Greed is a form of crazy. It’s not even security at some point. How many handmade quilts can you really use or store? You can’t. You just sell them for money to pay your phone bills and go on a cruise.
When my (poor) grandmother died her sons all took what they’d bought their mother and the car that they’d gone in together was sold and divided 4 ways. My aunt divided my grandmothers household stuff (very sparse) between me and my first cousin. We were the only granddaughters. I got my grandmothers rolling pin. Unfortunately the chicken n’ dumplings mojo wasn’t inlcluded in that. I got her small hand sewing box and some cookie cutters. Along with a pie plate and some dishes. Things I’d seen her use since my babyhood that really mean something to me just because they were hers. I probably couldn’t give most of them away at a junk store. BUT, they were my grandmothers and I wouldn’t sell them for anything!
That family was really really poor when the kids were small. And later on even though the kids made good my grandmother lived on her SS supplement and lagniappe from her kids. Which is OK. It’s certainly the biblical mandate to take care of your widowed mother. Those kids still get along famously. I think because there wasn’t anything to fight over. No money, no land and no luxuries like depression glass or the like. They share stories of childhood deprivations and all laugh about it now.
What’s kind of amusing is this. The family I listed above the plundered their grandfather before he was even dead left what I consider all the ‘good stuff’ behind. I ended up getting the cast iron cookware because no one else wanted it. This was years ago before Y2K or prepping and you literally couldn’t give it away because it wasn’t ‘teflon’ or ‘nonstick’. I use that stuff every single day. The out of town daughter and her daughters still live hand to mouth. The stuff they plundered was sold and the money wasted.