My aunt 87, lives independently in her own home alone, as a widow. She lives an hour away from me.
Since my mother, her sister died in 2018 of cancer, I have been staying in contact with my aunt and occasionally taking her out or doing little jobs in her garden. She is relatively healthy but suffers from kidney disease. She prefers her 'friends' taking her to doctors appointments and getting shopping. Although this is good, I feel disappointed that she doesn't want my help..these friends are a family down the road who do not like me. My Aunt is a wealthy land owner and as fellow farmers I believe they have attained land from her. I don't trust them. She loves them and even has photos of their family around her house.
She is the only living relative on my mothers side I have. My daughter and I try to phone every week and visit every other week but it feels like a real chore as I don't feel welcome. She is quite rude to me but loves my 18yr daughter.
My daughter and iIare her only next of kin and feel we must stay in contact and visit and contact. She has a health alert device which she wears but I still worry. It doesn't feel like a pleasure visiting anymore, I think she feels I am after her money! As a single parent I struggle but I have never asked for help from her
Me, I would be glad an Aunt I wasn't particularly close to had people who were looking out for her. Especially, if the Aunt was an hour away. If you feel you calls and visits are not welcome, then stop. If you call, feel her out "Thought about visiting next week and taking you out to lunch" Let her respond and don't push it if she says No thankyou. Just say, OK maybe we can make it another time.
I wonder if you have been pushing this relationship.
Blood does not make one an automatic heir to someone's estate. In fact, if your aunt is of sound mind (or was when she put her affairs in order), she may have specifically disinherited you. She might not approve of single mothers, not feel like she knows you -- who knows her reasons.
What she does know is that the family nearby has been helpful to her, she likes them to the point of having their photos in the house, and they see her far more often than you do.
My step-grandmother, who for all intents and purposes WAS my grandmother from 1970 to her death in 2018, didn't leave me a thing and left it all to her nieces who had been the ones to care for her and had had a closer relationship with her. I lived a thousand miles from her, so I completely understood.
The most important thing to ALWAYS remember is that someone's money and property is theirs to do with as they please until they're gone.
Say your aunt does have an "epiphany" and realizes that she is foolish to not accept help from her "only next of kin" - being you and your daughter.
Are you really ready to take on ALL the responsibility that comes along with an aging relative?
Are you ready to be at her beck and call as she ages in place? When her health problems begin to spill over from one medical emergency into the next? Are you ready to help her with her ADL's: eating, dressing, transferring, TOILETING? When she starts to have to wear incontinence garments, are you prepared to clean her up? Or worse, when she REFUSES to wear such garments? Are you prepared to fight her tooth and nail when the time comes that she can no longer manage safely in her home, and needs to seek placement? The list goes on and on - you only have to read a dozen or so threads here to see the common theme, that taking care of aging relatives is 1,000% harder than anything you have ever imagined doing.
You say she manages well enough now. So did my mom, for 85 years. Then, all of a sudden, she didn't. It wasn't a gradual decline; she suffered from CHF, which she managed for well over 15 years, then one terrible respiratory illness (and I'm not talking about covid, this was well prior to covid) and she was unable to be left alone due to her being a fall risk, among many other things. And I mean this happened overnight. She became a "shut-in" as they used to be called; and so did I right along side her. The difference was she was 86 with health problems, but no real other responsibilities; and I was 53 with good health and a job and a family to take care of. In a matter of weeks, any of her remaining responsibilities - bills to pay, correspondences to keep, doctors' appointment to get to, grocery shopping and laundry - became MY responsibilities. Because she was unable to do them anymore. She didn't want that to happen; I certainly didn't want that to happen; but it happened, and I was left "holding the bag" so to speak. Even if it had gotten to the point that she would have had to get placed in a facility, that would also have been my responsibility, to make that happen and to keep an eye on her once she entered said facility.
And you don't live with Auntie. You really have no idea what health issues she actually has, other than what she is telling you.
So here's my advice. If you are trying to do this out of a sense of filial responsibility, she has made it clear to you that she isn't interested in your help, and you have nothing for which to feel guilty. If you are doing this with the hopes of a financial windfall once she's gone, it might very well turn out to be the hardest you've ever worked or will ever work in your life for some money; and the possibility always exists that Auntie might need paid help that will eat through her savings and leave her estate with nothing.
Not for nothin, but it sure DOES sound like you're after your Aunts money, especially since you started keeping contact with her AFTER your mother died in 2018.
Your Aunt has every right to keep her finances a secret. She also has a right to leave her money to whomever she sees fit to leave it to, including the Dumb Friend's League or the nosy neighbors you don't trust but who she keeps photos of around her home.
Since your Aunt is rude to you and doesn't enjoy your company, you should consider her feelings and stop visiting her but allow your daughter to continue doing so, since she loves her. Auntie probably doesn't see your daughter as having an agenda.
Sorry to be blunt, but this is how your post is coming off. Which means this may be how you are coming off to your Aunt as well. You may have every good intention on earth and NOT be after her money, but if you are coming off as being inheritance-hungry, that could be what she is seeing and responding to. Maybe you need to change your tactics/attitude with your Aunt and approach her differently in order for her to receive you differently.
Good luck
Hello, Denverite! 😉
My kitty came from the DFL. We lived in Colorado for many years.
Expectations of inheritances cause a lot of family drama, disappointment and poor decision-making. If she enjoys your daughter's visits, and your daughter is willing to visit, then by all means encourage this relationship. Your daughter may be able to gauge whether she's doing ok or not, whether she needs help or not. And eventually when she's incapacitated either physically or cognitively, and no one is her PoA, then no one will be able to legally manage her medical or financial affairs except for the county (who will eventually pursue guardianship). Upon her death her estate will go into probate and that's when the opportunity for you to see what's what of what's left, but there's no guarantees.
I do get the feeling that money is somehow tangled up in all of this. Do you know if she has a will and if you are named in it? Or are the neighbors? Is she still capable mentally? She may not want to tell you anything and I guess that's her right. Unless she is incompetent and then if (big if) the neighbors got her to change her will for their benefit, then there's some elder abuse/fraud going on.
What she has set up works for her, why would you want to change it?
Quite frankly, it's her money, her house and her life, she can do whatever she wants with it and if that means the lovely, helpful neighbors get everything, it's none of your business.
You don't have to like her neighbor friends, they're her support system that obviously have been there for a long period of time.
Don't visit if you can't deal with her choices.