muttleynfelix
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Post by muttleynfelix on Jun 2, 2012 16:41:37 GMT -5
I'm not losing any sleep over the situation, but I'll never be happy about how it played out. Different strokes, I guess.
I think that is understandable. If we had never gotten the toy tractor for my son, I doubt I ever would have been happy about not getting it (mainly because they said we could have whatever we wanted and then backed off when it came to this particular item). There is a difference between not being happy the way something played out and letting the unhappiness rule your life.
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Mardi Gras Audrey
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So well rounded, I'm pointless...
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Post by Mardi Gras Audrey on Jun 2, 2012 19:37:36 GMT -5
Zib, how long were your mom and her hubby married, if you don't mind answering that?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2012 9:30:52 GMT -5
I really don't have any sentimental feeling towards heirlooms at all. My mom had tons of antique stuff. I don't collect nor like antiques. I have one other sister who lives several states away. I knew when the time came, that it would all be on me to take care of her things. And, i was going to do what i could do and i simply do not have the time or effort to have worried about what someone else may or may not want. When my sis came up a few months back, i told her she should take whatever she wanted to take back for her daughter because i am not going to try to figure out what someone wants, doesn't want nor take on the responsibility to store it. She choose to take back nothing. So, when i cleared out my mom's apt, everything, except a few things i kept for my kids, was sent to auction. I personally do not find things to be meaningful. And, if someone really wants a momento, i recommend that it get passed on while all parties are alive and capable to make that exchange rather than relying on a third party. To the OP, what is gone is gone. You can't get it back so i wouldn't waste any more time being upset because it really isn't going to help other than making you feel upset.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 3, 2012 9:54:24 GMT -5
I really think people are way to attached to "stuff". There is a time to just let stuff go. I felt bad about my mom's things initially. But, you know what? Her "thing" isn't my "thing". She enjoyed and loved her things. They served their purpose. Now it is time for those things to move on to someone else who will love them too. And, property, why keep property? If you can't live in it, what good is it other than a maintenance headache? Keep a few small momentos and let everything else go. And, if something is gone already, it is gone, don't allow things to come between family.
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zibazinski
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Post by zibazinski on Jun 3, 2012 14:34:18 GMT -5
25 years but it wasn't her stuff even. It belonged to my dad before he married her. He left it to me in his will.
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sheilaincali
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Post by sheilaincali on Jun 4, 2012 9:42:44 GMT -5
DH's extended family is very strange. They were close at one point but then DH's dad passed (in 1978) followed 18 months later by his uncle, aunt, cousin, and DH's sister. It was a huge blow to the family and they had a very difficult time getting together because it would bring up painful memories about the people they had lost. My MIL (who is not well liked by her former in laws) had a Victorian sofa that her SIL had given to my MIL and FIL. When FIL died MIL kept the sofa, eventually it came to us. We hauled that damn thing across the country multiple times (Alaska to MN, MN to CA, CA to MN) and finally had enough. We called up DH's aunt the original owner and asked her about it. No one wanted it and they told us we could do anything we wanted BUT give it back to my MIL. Fine with me, MIL hates me anyway. We eventually sold it and no one was offended- but we had asked first.
My parents are quite wealthy and my brother will frequently make "when mom and dad die I get xyz" comments. I feel they are in very bad taste seeing as my parents are in their early 60's and in very good health. My family has history of longevity (my great grandma live to 104) and most of my great aunts and uncles into their 90's. Both of my grandma's are still going strong and living on their own in their upper 80's. It will be a battle of epic proportions when my parents do pass. I personally plan on cash my inheritance check and moving far away from the drama.
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hoops902
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Post by hoops902 on Jun 4, 2012 10:29:32 GMT -5
"Personally, I don't think something has to date back to the mid 1800's to be considered part of a family's history."
You're the only person who seems to be assigning any significance in terms of family history though. You never even knew about the gun until just now. The person who would have had the attachment to the gun gave it away.
For all of the ways you would have liked it to play out, that all requires people recognizing that this item is of familial significance. It wasn't. It was so insignificant that you didn't even know it existed until he told you. It's unfair to have expected him to place the kind of significance on an item to go around to all the family before selling it when literally no one to that point had placed any actual significance on the item up to that point.
Ignoring the "heirloom" part of it, you're expecting that he would take actions based on this being a family treasure, when the only person who views it that way is you, and you just found out it even existed. It feels like an unfair expectation on him given the family's view of the item up to the point he informed you it existed.
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muttleynfelix
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Post by muttleynfelix on Jun 4, 2012 11:13:27 GMT -5
I really think people are way to attached to "stuff". There is a time to just let stuff go. I felt bad about my mom's things initially. But, you know what? Her "thing" isn't my "thing". She enjoyed and loved her things. They served their purpose. Now it is time for those things to move on to someone else who will love them too. And, property, why keep property? If you can't live in it, what good is it other than a maintenance headache? Keep a few small momentos and let everything else go. And, if something is gone already, it is gone, don't allow things to come between family. It depends on the stuff. I definately feel a connection to my Grandma when my son is playing with his toy tractor and the snoopy fishing pole that we got from her estate. I feel a connection to my Grandpa (whom I don't have a lot of great memories with because he developed dementia when I was 12) when I look over and see the tractor that was his that my DH uses. Yes I would much rather have my Grandparents still here and actually bawled my eyes out Saturday night when I was thinking about the fact that I don't get to call my Grandma and tell her she is going to be a Great-Grandma again. The day after we got the tractor my DH said something that could have been straight out of my Grandpa's mouth. Considering that my Grandpa passed away 5 years before DH and I married (4 years before we met), it was crazy to hear. Yes it is just stuff, but it is stuff that makes me feel closer to people that I love.
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shanendoah
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Post by shanendoah on Jun 4, 2012 11:25:41 GMT -5
And again, I ask, given all that this uncle has done for the OP, are you really going to hold this one thing against him? Especially since you would never have known about it if he hadn't told you? You need to stop thinking of it as "your" gun, or even as "your grandmother's" or "your grandmother's brothe's" gun. It was your uncles gun. We know this because it was given to him. And it was his to do with as he pleased.
My grandparents, a few years ago, at a time when all three of their kids were visiting at the same time, handed them each different colored stickers and said "place a sticker on the things you want". Would you believe there was only one item which all three placed a sticker on? And it was on something that will be worthless to anyone outside the family. Honestly, it's an item that will be worthless to anyone once my father and his siblings all pass- it's a portrait of a horse they owned when they were young. Family rule is that grandkids get nothing. Everything is distributed among the kids. There are some items that my brother and I were promised when we were the only grandchildren (now there are 8 of us). Those may go to my father with the implication that they be given to us, or they may not.
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