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IT WAS PROBABLY THE last time I would see my brother. I’m 78 and ravaged by a chronic but controlled cancer, a stroke warning and a stent. Rich is 74, with a health profile only a little less foreboding. Both of our parents died at 81.
Always cordial but not always close, we’ve worked through his resentment about how I abdicated my role as an older brother and my jealousy about his close relationship with our explosive father. We talk maybe once every few weeks, but—living on opposite coasts—we hadn’t seen each other for seven years.
I sped down Route 80 toward San Francisco, exiting on Route 12 North to Napa Valley, California’s answer to French wineries and countryside. I turned into the driveway of the resort and instantly spotted that long, angular frame waving in front of one of the stand-alone cabins. He was in jeans and wearing a Miami Hurricanes hat. We instinctively rushed toward each other and embraced tightly for a long time before walking arm in arm to the hotel restaurant.
Like most families, ours had to learn some of life’s darkest lessons. We survived my sister’s murder by a serial killer and my own debilitating depression. A tumultuous but tight-knit group, we hunkered down and looked to fly under the radar, determined to make good after centuries of religious discrimination.
Rich and I were raised by the same parents in the same house, but our internal interpretations of our childhood are very different. My brother uses the word “idyllic.” I felt unappreciated and rejected for my soft interests like writing and stamp collecting. The elephant in the room was my father, a Romanian immigrant resolved to avenge his personal experiences with bigotry by building a small real estate empire.
My brother was the loyalist who idealized my father for his exploits and worldly wisdom. I was the renegade who challenged his hegemony by excelling in academic pursuits outside of his realm. Identifying with my father, Rich became a tough-minded medical malpractice attorney and risk-tolerant stock and real estate investor. Shielded by my mother and grandmother, and spurred on by encouraging high school teachers, I became a clinical psychologist so I could figure out myself as much as my patients.
Different scenarios of childhood leave their mark. Emerging from his childhood years feeling safe and confident, Rich has always been into individual stocks, especially technology and small-cap companies. Tentative and insecure, I lumbered in diversified portfolios tilted toward defensive sectors like health care and consumer staples. He thrives on leveraging real estate to maximize capital gains potential. I prefer to own my properties free and clear, so I’m less vulnerable to recessionary downdrafts.
Despite our differences in career and temperament, my brother and I have braved some turbulent waters. He rails against government handouts, whereas I may be married to the only Sacramento landlord who voted for rent control. After a few animated telephone skirmishes, Rich and I agreed to ban political oratory from our conversations.
My mother’s death in 1999 put my financial future in my brother’s hands. He had moved from New York to Florida many years before, in part to help my mother care for my father, who was paralyzed on one side by a stroke. Rich also oversaw their personal finances, managed their remaining income properties in Florida and transported them to their mounting number of medical appointments.
Alienated by their provincialism and seeming minimization of my scholastic success, I abandoned my parents and built a life in California. My mother had always been the moral authority in the family and protected me. But Rich helped her write the will and was executor of her estate. I anticipated disinheritance or, at best, my own personal rendition of the 60-40 allocation.
A few weeks after my mother’s funeral, my brother asked if I wanted to see the will. I was startled and caught off guard. He read my apprehension. “Come on, Stevie, you already know what’s in there. It’s 50-50 all the way.”
Prepared to be devastated and enraged, I instead felt horribly guilty. “Richie, didn’t she give you anything extra for all you did?”
“No, we both thought of it as family. She was proud of you and felt strongly that what she left should be divided equally.”
Proud of me? Who knew? I was flush with gratitude that they stood by me but chagrined by the unfairness to my brother. The reward for his devotion was to be intangible and nonmaterial. My wife suggested I give him my share of our parents’ house, and I didn’t hesitate. When I presented the idea, he was about to respond with the perfunctory “no, that’s not necessary,” but paused and then nodded okay. Life can be so ironic. He was the one who was overlooked, not me.
Several years before their deaths, my parents bought residential-income properties located in both Florida and California. Sharing ownership of each property would have been a logistical and accounting nightmare. I proposed a solution. “Richie, let’s make it simple. You take Florida and I’ll take California.”
He laughed. “Yeah, no appraisals, we’ll just transfer the deeds.”
“Great.”
“I’ll have my office send the paperwork out to you. You’ll just have to sign and date.”
It was our first scheme as a twosome. Two weeks later, a thick manila envelope arrived containing the requisite documents with little red arrows pointing where to sign. I signed them all without looking at the contents.
Last month, before I drove away from the resort, we regaled each other with stories about our father’s most outrageous escapades. That was, I suspect, as much intimacy as we could tolerate—and as much as our limited time would allow.
Steve Abramowitz is a psychologist in Sacramento, California. Earlier in his career, Steve was a university professor, including serving as research director for the psychiatry department at the University of California, Davis. He also ran his own investment advisory firm. Check out Steve’s earlier articles.
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Thank you for this fascinating personal and unique perspective on family dynamics.
Boy did this strike a chord:
“Always cordial but not always close, we’ve worked through his resentment about how I abdicated my role as an older brother and my jealousy about his close relationship with our explosive father.”
The details aren’t the same but the big picture is similar. Personally I’d say it thus:
“Never close and barely cordial, his resentment and jealousy growing ever more so over the last 50+ years…”
My older brother still feels anger and resentment about our even older brother’s death when we were mid-teens…my closer-than-his relationship with our parents…me being their executor…the list goes on. I’ve been ostracized for faithfully – and to my own financial detriment – executing their wills as per their wishes. He’s slandered me in conversation with our extended family, and has stated I am “out of the family, as if he’s pope and I’ve been excommunicated. Never close and barely cordial, we are now even further apart with zero hope of any sort of reconciliation; he refuses my calls. I’ve given up; he has my number.
Thanks Steve. I expect most of the readers of Humble Dollar are at the stage of life where we are thinking about our own mortality, justice and the privilege that have gotten us to where we are now. You have put a sharp point on family.
William, mortality, justice, privilege. To that I would like to add gratitude for those who helped us get this far, acceptance that we are this far along, and inner peace.
Steve, thank you for that personal and powerful story. Condolences on your mutual health situations, but it seems they have provided some urgency for you and your brother to reconcile somewhat (and handle your inheritance issues free of conflict), and that is a welcome result of unwelcome circumstances.
My own cancer, now in remission, had the opposite impact. I will never see — or likely speak with — my own brother again in this life. Mazel tov on your happier outcome.
Mike, sorry for all that grief. Judging from the comments, seems so many of us are dealing with various forms of grieving—over those loved ones about to leave us and those who are already gone. And we are rehearsing for the aftermath—the sadness of the loss, the loneliness and the time together not fully appreciated. For those who survive us, we wonder how they will fare and will regret never knowing their own journey and the part we contributed to it.
True, Steve, but it’s also important to live in the “now” and accept things as they are, even if it’s difficult. I’m glad you and Rich both made the decision that preserving your oft-strained relationship was worth the time and effort because it was beneficial for both of you. I had to accept that my brother, my best friend for my first 40 years of my life, had become a toxic presence who simply wasn’t healthy for me. My concern was for making the most of the time I had left, not what would happen afterwards, and he didn’t belong in that time. I believe that decision may have been as important to my unexpected survival as it now is to my happy and contented life. I believe your opposite decision is having the same positive effect on you.
You struck a chord, as did Steve in his original post (see my response above), when you said:
“I had to accept that my brother, my best friend for my first 40 years of my life, had become a toxic presence who simply wasn’t healthy for me. My concern was for making the most of the time I had left, not what would happen afterwards, and he didn’t belong in that time. I believe that decision may have been as important to my unexpected survival as it now is to my happy and contented life.”
A toxic presence indeed. Thankfully, he made the choice to exit from any relationship with me and my life, and I am the better, the saner, the healthier for it.
Good luck with your continued health.
Mike, sorry it’s taken me so long to respond. My relationship with my brother was not as close as the one you had, and I can hardly imagine what the split must have felt (still feels) like. The only close relationship I’ve had to break away from like that was with a college friend, which is of course not the same thing you went through.
Very glad you made a choice to free yourself and, despite the loss, now have a more contented (and sounds like) meaningful life. Yes, while I think that the past (your experience with and decoupling from your brother) informs and helps us understand the present, in the end we must find acceptance and inner peace. It sounds like you made a painful choice that nonetheless enabled you to grow, move on and embrace the future. Thanks for your two heartfelt comments.
Steve,
Thanks for another great story based on your most interesting family.
Reference the exchange Rick and you had below, I’ll share something quick.
Once I was having a chat with a family law lawyer and I said, “You know, people think we (criminal lawyers) deal with some nasty stuff, but the divorces you guys handle are often much worse.” “That’s true”, he allowed, “but if you really want to hear some horror stories, talk to a probate lawyer about a will contest!”
Andrew, thank you. Ha ha! I also find my family “interesting,” but I’m not sure I mean it the same way you do!
Steve, maybe I’m being too personal here, but that doesn’t have to be the last visit. Develop a 6-month plan for visits, even for a weekend and a beer. It sounds like you both have the means. All it takes is a plan. I wish I could have that chance with my (late) brother.
Rick, I know you’re right and I don’t quite understand why we haven’t done that. It will be very hard if he leaves before I do because he’s my last family member. Sorry about your brother. Sometimes the things we don’t do in life are hard to fathom in retrospect. Grieving can be especially painful when you’re aware you could have done all those little things together that would have enriched your lives and now your memories.
Jeff is right, Steve. Make a mutual plan, a time-frame. It takes the decision-making automatic. That will free you both to be available, in all senses of the word.
Now, I am going to respond to my HS friend’s email response to me. We reconnected after a life of apartness and have a lot to go over….
Not Rick, it’s Jeff! Sorry.
Steve, thanks for the interesting and personal article. I’ve heard too many horror stories of families fighting over estates. It’s nice to hear one where family worked together. I’ve been involved in settling 5 estates, and thankfully all were completed with no issues.
Rick, thanks for the kind words. Boy, are you fortunate all those 5 instances worked out well. As you know, divorce disputes can be equally acrimonious. I was very lucky to have a family that was incredibly loyal to us kids and to extended family. A few years ago, when updating our estate plan, Alberta noticed that one of my beneficiaries was my brother. She said “Why? He doesn’t need the money.”
“That’s not the point—he’s my brother.”
When I worry about my son Ryan’s health and financial security when we’re gone, I am comforted in knowing he is surrounded by dedicated family on both sides.