Rich

Rich, my mom's dad, was an interesting character. My first memory of him was when I was 7 and he showed up at 6am on a Sunday to take my grandmother out to breakfast. I just remember opening the door and seeing this gorgeous 6ft blond haired green eyed movie star staring down at me with the biggest smile on his face. He picked me up and hugged me, then set me down and said, "Soy tu abuelo, pero call me Rich." 

Rich was an irresponsible bastard who let down everyone in his life every single time it mattered, but he was also charismatic and exciting and it was impossible to outright hate him. Rich was part of an extremely wealthy family in Mexico. He moved to the US to handle their business on this side of the border, but I honestly feel like his family wanted him out of the way because he was a lazy fuck up that continuously caused problems.   

Anyway, he died on my birthday back in November. Due to his bullshit antiquated sexist and conservative catholic views on inheritance, the entire pile of shit that was his estate was my problem. It's stupid because my mom has an older half sister with 4 kids but they don't matter because my grandfather never married my aunt's mom. Then there's me, the only male in his direct line to be born in a traditional catholic marriage. Lucky fucking me. 

Which bring us to my trip home for the holidays and the multiple lawsuits filed against me by my aunts and cousins challenging a nonexistent estate they all felt there were entitled to. Everyone thought there was millions of dollars and properties up for grabs when in reality there was nothing at all. If everyone had given me time to explain they could've saved themselves thousands of dollars. It took me a couple weeks to figure out things were even worse than him being cash broke. He'd also taken out a reverse mortgage on my aunt's home. The best part of all this bullshit was being able to turn over the financials and letting their lawyers explain they were broke and soon to be homeless. I honestly didn't know how I was going to do it!

Rich's funeral was extremely unsettling as half remembered and aged faces scurried through my vision and memories all day long. I was surprised by how many people decided to show up and pay their respects to Rich during a pandemic. I stayed behind a very large clear plastic barrier and must have greeted and received condolences from over 100 people. My mom kept trying to talk to me but I used covid precautions and my bodyguards as a decent excuse for her to stay away. My brother and sisters didn't even bother coming to the funeral because they'd only met Rich a handful of times. Rich was definitely much closer to my aunts and all their children.

Now that it's all said and done and I've had a little while to process this whole fucked up situation, I've come to the conclusion that Rich was a terrible human being and a sorry excuse for a man. Generational wealth really fucks with a person's morals and self-worth in strangely insidious ways that you never see coming. To me Rich has always been a raging narcissist I was anchored to against my will through blood. But to my aunts and cousins he was a deeply caring family member and a financial safety net for all of them when times got rough. He lied to them and made promises that he had no intentions of keeping all so they'd look at him like a benevolent saint. And then he left me to shatter their dreams and expectations with a super depressing reality. 

Rich, you were my grandfather and I never liked you. I'm pretty sure you never liked me either. I never looked at you the way my cousins did. I never saw you as my savior, because I'd already spent my whole life dealing with snakes just as bad as you were. I'm not going to miss you, but I will respect and remember all the things you did for me and how different my life would be if you weren't in it. You taught me that everything had a price and you made sure that I understood what it meant to pay that price. It's super unfortunate you never learned this lesson yourself, but I will always be grateful that I did. Let's all hope hell isn't real because if it is, that's for sure where you ended up.