An End of Privilege

Ron Alexander

Growing up in the privileged class – assuming that I would inherit my rightful share
Of the family’s estate, I had a certain amount of security that many others don’t have.
I was a young adventurer, when most people were trying to get a good job
Or start a lucrative business.
I was sailing over most of the world exploring wild islands and countries..
I was doing most things that I heard older people say they wanted to do
When they retired.
I didn’t have to worry about building a nest egg.
That would come with ancestral land and estate.
Mom had sold off much of the Dad’s accumulation.
Living a shop-alcoholic life and making terrible business decisions.
I saved three family houses than had been condemned.
However, Mom saw this as an attempt to take control,
And power struggles convened over the houses and contents.
In 2007, Mom had congestive heart failure and almost died.
After then she became much less obsessed with things,
And we became much closer.
I spent a lot of time creating a poem, a scrapbook and a digital frame that Christmas.
And considering that I thought our relationship was healed,
I did not even think of the will, as I became
My nephew’s caregiver after he overdosed in the fall.
Mom said “I did not think you would be the one.”
I replied, “that is because you have been angry with me all these years.”
She and my aunt set up a caregiver’s account for my nephew and
The trouble is she became ill a few weeks later,
And was never to speak again
And left her body on Christmas Eve.
I was shocked to find out
A few weeks later that I was pretty much left out
Of the will written in 2006,
And I am convinced in my own
Mind that she would have changed it,
Based on my becoming my nephew’s caregiver.
However, I have found out that
She could have left it to her cats,
And still I could not have had the will changed.
I see it as as my duty to prove to the family
That the true treasures in this life,
Are the “fruits of the Spirit”.
Oops, there goes my trip to Fiji.
Oops, there goes my new diesel V.W.
Yea, there go my attachments, and
my guilt from my privileged position -
the surviving son of five.
The loss of privilege is humbling,
I am grateful for being spared.