Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro: 30oC, hot, sunny and cloudy.
Over the past few days, we have discussed family, relationships, and money. Families are beautiful and important for society but can also be complicated.
Reflecting on my past, one of the reasons I came to Brazil was to escape problems within my family, particularly with my mother. I may have mentioned how my mother was callous to me and my brother when we were children. Her behaviour seemed to have indirectly and unintentionally prepared me for the world but left me feeling completely unloved.
Until my parents were together, we had money like the average British middle-class family. We lived in a semi-detached house. It was in a nice residential street in a small, beautiful town/village in England. However, my grandparents from my mother’s side lived all their lives in a council house in a council housing estate. Different classes within the same family, and to add to this my mother’s cousin, my uncle, was a top lawyer working as a top executive in some of the largest and most influential companies at that time in England.
He made an outstanding career for himself and became a millionaire. As a person, I consider him to be a bit of an asshole, as the Americans would say. So, in the same extended family, we have three different social classes. My grandparents were traditionally working class. My brother, parents, and I were considered middle class, and my uncle was upper class. He is an asshole. But he is upper class.
Returning to money and family and how complicated it can sometimes be. Once, my mother called me from England. My stepfather, Roger, had already died. I must have been living in Brazil for at least ten years. My mother called me and was crying on the phone, complaining that my brother, Russell, had withdrawn all my grandmother’s money from her savings account.
At first, hearing this, I couldn’t believe it. My grandmother didn’t have much money; she depended on her state pension. Private pensions did not exist at that time. It was just a pittance of a state pension she received weekly from the post office, where she would withdraw the money in cash. It was just enough to keep her going and to put aside a little. The English love saving money for a rainy day, and my grandmother was very responsible with money.
At first, believing that my brother had cleaned out my grandmother’s savings account wasn’t easy. When everything was confirmed, and this betrayal was in front of our faces, I decided to go to England to resolve it. My mother called me in October, so I went to England in December to spend Christmas and New Year. It is the best time of the year for me to travel, as usually at that time is when I had school. It was the only time of the year when I could have two weeks off, just before Christmas until the first week of January.
I’ve been called the family sheriff, who doesn’t tolerate nonsense or foolishness. It was amusing when my mother suggested that this would not have happened if I had been living in England. I found her comment to be unfair, unnecessary, and highly manipulative. In my mother’s eyes, she was trying to imply that what my brother had done was partly my fault. I know that’s absurd; I’m not responsible for my brother. However, she attempted to shift the blame onto me.
When I arrived in England, my brother spotted me on the first day because he lived in the house next to my mother’ and invited me to dinner that evening. During our conversation, my brother indirectly confirmed what our mother had claimed. I advised him that life would make him pay much more if he did not repay what he owed.
So, it would be better for him to find a way to pay back whatever he had taken as soon as possible, even if it were in instalments, to pay it off. I emphasised that if he did not, it would not be me who would be making him pay, but life itself, and usually, life’s bills are more expensive.
He understood what I was trying to say. There was no animosity or bitterness between us and no finger-pointing or judgmental behaviour. I stayed in England until the first week of the new year and a little after. He began paying back what he owed in instalments to my grandmother.
Until now, 20 years later, it is still a dark stain in the family. Both my mother and my brother do not speak to each other. My mother uses this case to blame his wife, Debbie. I don’t know if she wants to blame Debbie because it is easier to accept and put the blame on the wife, who is not my mother’s blood, or if it’s an opportunity to use the situation to put the daughter-in-law down and discredit her.
All I know is that my mother has never been easy. But I also think my brother would do anything to please his wife. As for his wife, I’m not sure about her. I know she is a good wife and a perfect mother, and she seems to be a decent, respectable person to me at face value. But we never know.
The question of whether money and family mix well is a complex one. In some cases, they do, while in others, they don’t. I’ve witnessed wealthy families fighting over trivial things like chicken feed and poor families who would take their shirts off their backs for selflessly helping others. Life is too short to focus solely on money, although it is undeniably essential. We need money, but ultimately, whether we have it or not is partially within our control.
It’s essential to have goals and work towards them, but I also believe in the role of luck. Luck is a factor that cannot be ignored, and it often comes from hard work, education, and making the right choices for ourselves and others.
Thursday has been a day of classes, working on the websites, and moving forward without looking back.
In bed by 9.00 pm.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading this blog post. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments section.
Richard
