Many years ago, when I was around 8 or 9 years of age, my mom took in my 'aunt' (much further relation then that) in her last years of life. She was a lovely old lady whom I liked very much.

At one point in life, Auntie had had a considerable amount of money. By the time she passed, after all the medical bills had been paid, there were only a few thousand - I don't remember exactly how much.

To set the stage, my mom worked as a registered nurse.  She made a comfortable income, but not outstanding. The other "relatives" easily made 10 times what my mom did. They lived in areas like Great Neck, etc. We lived in a more modest area.
During Auntie's last months, out of all these "relatives", not one came to visit, save one 'uncle', and that was only once and very brief.

After Auntie passed, all these... "people" brought a lawsuit claiming Mom had abused and beaten Auntie, and Auntie had actually intended the money for them, so on and so forth. Total, complete and utter nonsense. Thank God, for once, for a judge's discretion to toss cases out of court. This was so obvious, and he did so without even listening to one word from these greedy bastards.

I never saw any of them again, ever. We never heard one word out of them, not a card, note, nothing, for which I'm eternally grateful.

I admit, this totally jaded me on 'family'. I see where it works, where it is strong, supportive, but I have seen too much of the dysfunctional side (sadly, including my own mother to a degree) that rules affairs.

I am a total cynic, crossed with pessimism. I cannot understand why people go after other people simply because they wear the title 'family'.

E