Do I Sound Like an Idiot to You?

I'm having a hard time knowing just who my friends are. My aunt tonight finally pulled out Grandma's jewlery - or part of it - she claimed it was all of it, but I'm not an idiot. My aunt has things separated out for each of us - which is good, she seemed to follow a partial list of Grandma's. I got a necklace with some saphires; it made me remember having a conversation with my grandma about what she should leave me and telling her that it should be something with a saphire because it was Grandma's favorite stone and is my birthstone. My sister got a ring that my grandmother wore all the time. My mom got a bunch of stuff; although clearly all stuff that my aunt won't ware.

Here's the thing - and granted it took me a little while to figure out - my grandmother had tens of thousands of dollars worth of jewlery. Papa always bought her expensive jewlery ($1000 sets according to my dad), and I know she had a lot. My aunt showed us things that she never wore and things that my grandmother wore day to day. I think in trying to fool my sister and me. But, her diamonds and jewels were missing; I figured this out when showing my Dad what my Mom inherited.

I'm going to try to be just happy that I didn't have to ask my aunt about getting something from the jewlery. My sister and I had decided earlier today that if my aunt hadn't mentioned the jewerly, that we would ask her to give us one thing to remember Grandma for each of us. So, we got that without having to ask for it; I think that's a blessing.

The hard thing is that it is so clear that my aunt is treating us like idiots. She admitted that the estate will only be claiming one or two pieces of the jewlery (because it'll be obvious if nothing is declared and there needs to be an apprasal for jewerly claimed in the estate so that taxes can be paid). The harder thing is that now I know that my good friend is working as the trust administrator and is a part of screwing us over. I don't just mean about the jewerly, but my father claims that he thinks my aunt changed what was orginally set up and we'll likely inherit MUCH less than our half and what was set up before Grandma developed Alzheimer's after Papa died.

I'm trying to so hard not to care about any of this, but the HARDEST thing is the disrespect showed to my mother by her sister and her sister's friends and sons. My brother in law said that my aunt complained that my mom was making noise (reading aloud prayers that were supposed to be said silently). Everyone's been so cold with my mom. I'm just grateful that all of this is over with. I've been enjoying spending a lot of time with Mom. A staff member at her facility actually bothered enough to share with me that Mom seems better since I arrived and have been taking her out so much.

Mom has told me several times over that last few days: "You're a good daughter." She even told her cousin that "I try to do things for other people. My daughter Debra takes after me in this regard." I've been getting Mom dressed up daily before taking her out, and she always smiles at herself in the mirror, really enjoying looking good. I feel really good about everything that I've done for her this week. AND even though my aunt and her sons are angry about my eulogy for Grandma, many people have commented on how nice it was. I'll post it later after taking the names out.