After Parents' Death

Death?  Morbid!  Depressing conversation.
The bad blood that gurgles in families after a parent’s death can be attributed to the embargo about death.  Life is a song, with a beginning and an end.

Reluctance by both parents and kids to talk about the end of the song results in broken arteries, sometimes involving lawyers, as those left behind fight over a parent’s belongings or property.
I’m reluctant about using property because that legal term sprouts up after somebody has died.  What used to be a home, becomes property and it has a second name, value. Properties are bought and sold and the higher the value, the more bitter the fight about who should have it.
That is where a will comes in handy, because it states who will get the parent’s house, the apartment building she owned on Snow Street, her shares in Outside the Box (OTB), a successful bank that does not use ‘traditional’ methods of attracting clients and acres of land she leases to canola farmers in Canada.

The absence of a will is mayhem as daughters remind everybody that they visited mam in the hospital or sons waving the heir card.  A will is even more important if the home or investment property e.g. the canola farms, was bought on credit, with loans from the bank.  Such property belongs to the bank until the loan is paid off.

Death is emotional but also brings out the selfish nature of individual family members, their hate for each other and pure greed that makes the saying, blood is thicker than water a bad joke.

C’est la vie.  Excuse my French.  Will or no will, death should be out in the open all the time: family dinners, coffee shop chats, phone calls etc. and not when mam is in the intensive care unit with tubes in her arms like climbing ivy.

Banks move in after death and sell things.

“Mam, I should get your house.  I never left this province because of you.”
Hospital security will definitely escort you out of the premises.
By:  Nonqaba waka Msimang.