The beneficiary: “Marilyn” is a 47-year-old communication strategist in British Columbia.
She’s in a long-term common-law relationship, has no children, and in recent years saw both her parents pass away in short succession. She’s the only living child of her parents’ marriage, though her father had two other children through an earlier marriage – Marilyn’s much-older half-siblings with whom she has a “friendly, but distant” relationship.
The inheritance: Nobody expected Marilyn’s mother to die before her husband, least of all her father himself. “Dad wasn’t in great health for a while so we all expected he’d go first and leave everything to Mom, who’d handle everything,” explains Marilyn. As such, while her Type-A mother’s will and estate was long planned and very clear – everything would go to her only remaining child – Marilyn’s 80-year-old, procrastination-prone, Type-B father didn’t even have a will. Marilyn promptly dragged him to a notary.
“Suddenly I was solely responsible for my dad – a man who’d never gone grocery shopping or paid bills or managed his household,” says Marilyn, who was her father’s executor and power of attorney atop everything else. Her father was “uncharacteristically co-operative,” she notes, and very grateful for his daughter’s help, especially since he had minimal contact with his other children, which Marilyn doesn’t hold against them at all. “My dad basically left his first family to start a new one, so obviously it’s a complicated situation full of family dynamics.”
How a retired accountant spent his frugal father’s inheritance meaningfully
Complicating it further, perhaps, were her father’s wishes that Marilyn get the lion’s share of their father’s estate, which Marilyn didn’t consider either fair or wise and said so. “My siblings are already pretty bitter about our father and this would only make things worse,” she says. But hurt feelings might be the least of her problems; Marilyn also worried they may pursue litigation and take her to court.
But like dads so often are, her stubborn father insisted his almost-million-dollar estate be divided this way: Marilyn was to receive 50 per cent, her half-sister would get 30 per cent and her half-brother was given 20 per cent. As executor, Marilyn promised to abide by his wishes. As a sister, she had other plans.
What she did with it: Upon her father’s death, Marilyn met with her own estate lawyer – whom she’s long known and trusts implicitly – with an unlikely request. “I explained my father’s will but that I’d like to override his wishes to split the estate three ways,” says Marilyn. Whatever you might be thinking about lawyers, this one commended her generosity and recommended sharing equally. “She said I was protecting myself from having the will contested, which was possible because anything’s possible, but also that I was doing the right thing.”
Marilyn’s quick to add an important caveat: She’d also inherited additional money from her mother, plus a mortgage-less house to live in, and is much more financially well-off than her siblings. “I feel like I have enough and all my needs are fulfilled,” she says. Would she have made the same decision to share if she were financially strapped, deep in debt or had a gaggle of children needing expensive university tuition? “That’s a good question. I guess I’ll never know.”
As is true for all of us, Marilyn only knows her own life and behaves accordingly – by both her morals and the law, of course. “My lawyer said I can’t rewrite the will, but I could share my portion by gifting the difference.”
What she learned: As per usual, all beneficiaries of the estate received a copy of the (previously unseen) will. This one, however, came with a letter from Marilyn’s lawyer stating her client’s wish to instead distribute the estate equally. No word at all about how either half-sibling reacted, as each took the money but neither properly responded. “To be honest, I’ve never had a conversation with either of them about how they felt about what I did – not even a thank-you,” says Marilyn, who wasn’t expecting one either. “It is what it is,” she says.
Even if Marilyn was hoping her gift would close the gap between them, she’s not holding her breath nor pushing the issue. “I feel like it’s their responsibility to broach the conversation, if they want to, and they never did so neither did I,” says Marilyn, admitting she was her father’s “golden child.” Perhaps her gift only reconfirmed these old familial dynamics. Either way, two years and a six-figure olive branch after their father’s death, the relationships with her siblings are the same as they always were.
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