Pearls of Wisdom and Foolish Mutterings

I am "this" close....

Remember how I went on and on a while back about finally getting all the paperwork to the lawyers so they could draw up the final accounting to send to the judge for approval so I could FINALLY, after one, two, three, FOUR long years get my dad's estate closed out? Well, that was just the first step, it seems.

The second step has been getting those *&%^$ lawyers off their $200/hr butts to do their part. I was as nice as I could be for as long as possible, but I finally was forced to morph into Super Bitch. Seems that is the only thing they respond to. So, on Monday of this week, I waged a phone call and email campaign that I'm sure could win some kind of prize for Most Obnoxious if there was such a contest. It worked though. I actually received an email yesterday and one this morning FROM my lawyer that did not come on the heels of pestering and threats and whining on my part.

Apparently the Final Accounting is "this close" to completion, along with the pleading to the judge for acceptance of the accounting and an order releasing me from the stupid bond that ate up $5000. additional dollars from the estate, not to mention the enormous fees I paid to the lawyers. (I should enter that sentence in a "Longest Sentence in the World" contest.)

After all of the aggravation and irritation and just plain old bull@$#* I've gone through getting the estate to this point, I'm just holding my breath hoping that idiot judge in the town where my dad lived doesn't pull some last-minute shenanigans. If I can actually be done with this whole chapter of my life sometime this month, I will be the happiest, most grateful person you have ever seen.

The real irony of all of this hullaballoo is that the pittance left in the estate account won't even be enough to cover all of the expenses I've incurred trying to settle the damn thing. I'll be happy if I recoup the lawyer fees. Mostly, I'll just be happy to be done with it.

One good thing that seems to have come from this is that now, four years down the road, I have stopped receiving phone calls from Dad's widow and her wretched sons. In fact, it's been well over a year since I heard from any of them. That alone is cause for rejoicing. I must admit to being a little nervous with the end in sight, that they might crawl out of the woodwork and start harrassing me once again. Hopefully they (the sons) have come to the realization that it was their mother's greedy machinations that allowed my dad's business (which was the only real money in the estate) to be stolen away by the small-town bank. There are a lot of people making money from that business, but none of them are members of Dad's family. My only consolation is that his widow and her greedy sons didn't get a dime from it.

The whole affair did provide me with excellent fodder for my novel. Truth really is stranger than fiction, but it can easily be adapted to fiction, I've found. It's quite good therapy, too, especially when I hold the fate of all the characters in my hands.

Oh, the things I have learned! I take solace in the fact that I have emerged on the other side of this life-changing, mind-blowing event wiser and stronger. So much has changed in the last four years. There was a time when I wasn't sure I would make it through this intact. But, here I am. And it's true - that which doesn't kill you, really does only make you stonger.