My daddy was found face down, slumped over the couch. Dead. It looked like his body had been pushed from his usual sitting chair onto the couch based on the way he was positioned. I couldn’t believe it. He was gone. At home. No complaints of feeling sick beforehand.
My father had many close calls that sent him to the hospital or a nursing home for stretches at a time, but he always bounced back. When he was better, he’d come home, and sometimes he came back stronger than when he left. He had been on dialysis for years, probably since 2005, and only had one kidney. But he always made it. Until he didn’t. He died in 2018.
Just days before, I had a strange feeling that one of my parents was about to die. I thought it would be my mom because her health was declining. I even took her to the beach in her wheelchair and pushed her down the boardwalk for a few hours. Two days later, my father died. Suddenly. He was just fine.
My dad sold drugs up until the day he died. I had never seen my father without at least five thousand dollars in his pocket at any given time. But when I arrived at my granny’s house where he died, his pockets were empty. Strange, to say the least.
I was the one who made the call to have his body picked up after the coroner ruled the cause of death as natural. Likely a heart attack due to his health conditions. My grandmother handed me an old life insurance policy she had taken out on him in the 70s, worth about $9,000, and told me to handle everything. I ended up switching funeral homes because the one I originally chose was too far.
My sister couldn’t handle it. She broke down so bad she couldn’t even sit in the meeting with the funeral director. She left me crying hysterically in the office. The director suggested we come back the next day when the body would be picked up from the other location.
That next morning, I arrived too early to the funeral home, so I went to my grandmother’s house. I walked in and it looked like the place had been ransacked. My granny, who was in the early stages of dementia, was counting hundreds of dollars. My cousin was digging through boxes. I found it odd. Granny never kept large amounts of cash. And I already had the insurance policy. My cousin claimed they were “looking for pictures,” but I knew something wasn’t right. My mom had most of the old photos.
I stayed calm, tended to the baby, and quietly recorded my grandmother counting money while my cousin whispered for her to hide it. I knew it was my daddy’s money.
After staying for about thirty minutes, I left and headed to the funeral home. On the way, I called my mom and told her what I saw. She wasn’t surprised. But I was.
Then my dad’s best friend called me. A former bank robber turned preacher. He and my dad had done twelve years in prison together and remained close, even as they lived very different lives. He told me that my dad had $50,000 hidden in the house for me. I asked him if he was sure. He said without a doubt. Knowing my dad, maybe he exaggerated, but his friend was certain.
I didn’t tell him what I saw that morning. My cousin and grandma going through everything. I called my mom again, and she told me, “Keep your peace. Spend every last dollar of the insurance on the funeral, and don’t leave a dime behind.” So I did. I knew if I left anything, it wouldn’t make its way back to me.
My dad had three daughters and one son. He once told me he may have two other kids too. My brother was murdered in 2009, so in the end it was just us girls. I was the only one he raised from birth. The only one you could say he was active with from beginning to end.
His oldest daughter, he didn’t get to raise. He married her mother but they divorced and reconnected when she was a teen. She’s successful and lives on the East Coast, and because of distance and age, we’ve never been close. His middle daughter was born while he and my mom were still together, and he was in and out of her life. She spent a lot of time in juvenile hall and lived with us on and off.
I keep my distance from her now. My mom and dad were on and off since 1978, then together again from about 1995 to 2008. Their story is its own book.
From the outside, I looked like the favorite. But only because I was the one he raised. He bragged about all of us. He always talked about my oldest sister’s career. Told me to follow in her footsteps. He’d brag about my middle sister too. How she became an author from behind bars. He was proud of me for going away to college, moving out of state. But he didn’t want me to stop my life for him. “Go get your education. Marry rich,” he’d say. “I already lived. You go live.”
But when he had a stroke, I came home. Left everything behind in North Carolina to take care of both him and my mom.
At the funeral, I used every bit of leftover insurance money on flowers and extra obituaries. The funeral home handled it all. No money out of my pocket. My cousin, the same one, paid for the doves. Over $1,000. My dad’s friend came to the service and asked again if I found the money. I told him no. He didn’t believe it.
After the funeral, my pregnant sister began bleeding heavily and had to be rushed to the hospital. I stayed with her instead of going to the repast. I needed the space to think. Did my cousin and granny take the money and not say a word? Did they split it and leave me out? Did they really find $50,000?
Weeks passed. Then months. My middle sister called me hysterical. She said she believed our dad was robbed and murdered. She said the way he was found didn’t look right. That he never sat on that couch. She thought someone drugged and killed him. I didn’t know what to say. I had declined the autopsy. I regretted it.
She cried and cried, then hung up. Her grief turned into paranoia. She ended up on dialysis like our dad. I understood her pain, her distrust. Our family was already small. All my dad’s siblings were gone. Just his mom and a few nieces and nephews were left. I didn’t trust any of them anymore.
About a year later, that same cousin bought a brand-new big-body Mercedes. Then a new car for her daughter. More designer bags. I couldn’t help but notice and pocket-watch, even though I didn’t want to. I remember seeing her trying to hide money that day. I wondered if she spent my dad’s stash. I told myself maybe she had a good job. Maybe she had a partner helping her out. Maybe it was fraud. Anything other than believing she took what was meant for me.
I even asked her to help me get a job at the hospital she worked at. Different department. She never helped me. She helped other people, but not me. I let it go, tried to keep the peace, and moved accordingly. She ended up totaling the Benz and getting fired from that job anyway.
Reflection:
What I learned from this experience is that greed is something else. Money can make people lie, steal, and hide things from their own family. It can make people forget about morals, grief, loyalty, even you. And the saddest part is, you can’t even say you’re surprised.
P.S. This was originally meant to be my second blog post, but after my sister passed, it felt more appropriate to speak about her first.
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