Friday, June 26, 2009

My brother Richard

I think my brother highly under-estimates my intelligence.



I had been emailing him to inform him of mom's condition so he would be able to understand better her dementia problems. However, he has played the "Bill didn't tell me about his financial problems until long after they had happened... " tune in his emails, and quite frankly - I'm not buying it. It was before Bill had lost his home to foreclosure that Richard was trying to get mom to let Bill, his wife, and her four kids stay at mom's house. How ridiculous! Mom's home has around 950 sq ft - it has three bedrooms (one of which is an office and stores a hutch she used to have in the kitchen), one very small bath, a living room and a small eat-in kitchen. Great for a single person or a retired couple who don't want a large home to take care of... but to have 7 people cramped up in the home? That would be lunacy. So I know Richard knew of Bill's financial and legal troubles all during that time - Richard was trying to get mom to bail Bill out of jail and give him money and/or let Bill's family stay at her house - all before the foreclosure.



I didn't exactly write back and say, "Liar! Liar! Pants on fire!" - but I did let him know that I had been keeping a log of what had transpired for the last 8 years - dates, times, who did what, said what, and the outcomes. With that being said, his last email was basically a nice goodbye-I-won't-be-writing-to-you-again. Running scared?



There was so much Richard said in his emails that I knew wasn't true. In his first couple of emails, I was hoping he had actually done some soul searching and was willing to take some blame for what had torn us apart as a family. But I saw pretty quickly (by the third or fourth email) that he was still Richard... just that he has probably had some coaching on how to approach me and word things - but when he got a chance to latch onto something that he saw as wrong (mom changing her stories as to what happened in certain instances, which was a symptom of her dementia, and not outright lying, as Richard called it) he jumped on it with Richard-style flaming anger.



It felt like a gotcha moment.



The last email I sent, I told him that if there was ever a need to make a major decision about mom's care, I would call him and discuss it with him - because she is OUR mom. I have no clue where Bill is or how to contact him, so I was leaving that up to Richard. I won't exclude the brothers.



I really have to be cautious with all this - on one hand, I think Richard is trying to find something he can latch on to and use to hurt me. I just don't trust him. I don't think I'll ever trust him again.


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On a lighter note.... check out Jia stretching for gymnastics. The kid can do the splits already. We're amazed at how flexible she is...









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