<p>People can give their own perspective without being harsh. There were few posts accusing OP of being upset about not getting more money. To me, that’s mean spirited and unnecessary.</p>
<p>It’s certainly fine to offer explanations for her siblings behavior, but I personally found it ugly when posters questioned HER motives, accusing her of being in it for the money. I certainly didn’t wash my mom’s feet and clip her toenails for the money, and I’m sure that Alwaysinterested didn’t take on the care of her dad’s dog for mercenary reasons. Her father is dead. She is clearly in pain,and she feels hurt by the actions/comments of some of her siblings. Is that wrong? The advice to “let it go” to me is dismissive and insulting. Of course she has to let it go, eventually. I’m pretty sure she knows that, and that’s what she’s working on.</p>
<p>Why is saying “let it go” mean spirited? To me, that means one should not dwell on the negative experience, but move on with life. </p>
<p>In OPs initial post she (?) did make a point of telling us how much she had spent on the dog in one year alone, which may have given some readers the impression that she was keeping a tab, so to speak. I can see how some might have interpreted it that way.</p>
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I think she was explaining that what she had done was not insignificant. I guess I just think we can take someone’s word for something in a situation like this. When my father died I felt very unmoored and much more turned-upside-down than I would have expected. I did all the stuff for his estate (there was no money so it was just record-keeping stuff and disposing of his few possessions from the nursing home), and it would have been nice to have had siblings say that they appreciated it, not for the purpose of gain, but just to reassure that we are still family even without dad and that I still mattered.</p>
<p>Saying “let it go” can be mean spirited if the person hasn’t gotten the hurt out first and been offered a little kindness. Talking to us was getting it out on the way to letting it go. I think she just needed to get the words out to someone who wouldn’t have their own agenda and wasn’t involved in the actual situation.</p>
<p>I didn’t say “let it go” is mean spirited, try not to combine two posts from 2 different posters. Accusing OP of only caring about money is mean spirited. HotCanary feels telling OP to “let it go” is dismissive. I think there is some truth to that. We all know when we are sad or angry, the ultimate goal is to “let it go,” but it usually takes time.</p>
<p>Haven’t read the thread but the mere title sent shivers down my spine. You sound like you have had, for the mostpart, cooperative sibs who have divided up and handled things. I had the burden of doing it ALL, never took a penny of compensation, live further from my dad than my brother does, and had nothing but headaches and accusations from my #(*&()# brother, including his hiring an attorney 2 days after the funeral (after I gave him whatever he wanted and he and his wife literally took seats out from under peoples butts at the house after the funeral). Count your blessings</p>
<p>Oldfort,
I’m on my phone, which is my excuse for mixing up posts, sorry. Too hard to scroll up and down while typing on this tiny screen.</p>
<p>I didn’t say that saying “let it go” was mean spirited, I said it was dismissive and insulting. Every adult knows that you have to move forward in your life, and that you shouldn’t dwell on negative experiences. But this didn’t happen ten years ago, this just happened! The only way, in my experience, to truly let bad experiences go, is to examine them. Yes, you should consider that the people who treated you badly have legitimate reasons for doing so. On the other hand, maybe they don’t. It’s a process. There is no “move on” button. I have, for instance, moved on from hating my late sister to forgiving her and feeling genuine pity. It doesn’t mean that I pretend that some of the things she did weren’t terrible. It took time and a lot of thoughtful input from people who actually cared about me to get to that point. And along the way, there were plenty of people who spouted bromides at me, and they were truly not helpful. There’s a song that goes “It ain’t hard to get along with somebody else’s troubles, and they don’t make you lose any sleep at night.” </p>
<p>Re the OP’s discussion about the cost of taking care of the dog: it is extremely difficult to craft a post on this board, asking for help or reassurance. One wrong word, and someone is sure to jump on it.</p>
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But you can’t actually learn that unless you consider and examine the situation.</p>
<p>Exactly. That’s why you really can’t instantly “move on”.</p>
<p>I don’t think saying “let it go” on this thread was meant to be dismissive or mean. There was tons of discussion about what happened and why, and the bottom line is she will not likely ever get a full understanding of it, so it’s best not to dwell on it. That is quite different than dismissing or insulting her feelings.</p>
<p>I agree that there were many posts that were helpful, especially those that discussed that other sibs may not have had a positive relationship with the parent, or that someone might feel that her efforts weren’t all that necessary. I just don’t think that when something just happened, and you are processing it, that you are “dwelling” on it. To me, she is clearly looking for a way to “let it go”. Is that even really advice?</p>
<p>And there are a lot of situations in my life that I will probably never understand. It doesn’t stop me from thinking about them.</p>
<p>I personally, have a terrible time “letting things go.” So it would be helpful to me for others to tell me when there are things I won’t likely ever be able to solve by hanging on to them. Saying “let it go” is shorthand for that.</p>
<p>I think some of the “let it go” comments were dismissive, while some meant well. At several points, I wondered if some had actually read or re-read OP’s posts. Sometimes, what matters is the delivery. When my brother recently told me to let go of an issue with my mother, it was helpful and allowed me to back off from something toxic. Otoh, we’ve all had people look at us and command us to drop something we were sharing, when we just needed an ear.</p>
<p>“One wrong word, and someone is sure to jump on it.” What I call the piranha effect that sometimes crops up on an anon forum. Fortunately, I find that most of the time people hit their own reset buttons.</p>
<p>I’m one of those people who can obsess over anything. Actually saying the words of something that bothers me is sometimes very freeing all by itself. I have no idea why.</p>
<p>Whoa, it’s obvious we’ve stumbled into an area where logic isn’t helpful. But I’ll try anyway. Is anyone advocating that the OP (who has intelligently decided to bow out of this discussion) … is anyone advocating that the OP NOT “let it go” and NOT “move on?” Perhaps I’m just not getting it. Is the objective to do things better the next time the OP’s father dies?</p>
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<p>Condolences to both of you for the loss of your Dads.</p>
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<p>I don’t think this is about money, but about the fairly nasty responses the OP got when she asked that brother be reimbursed for expenses he incurred that the do nothings did not. And she is hurt that they don’t recognize that she did everyone else a favor by taking the dog.</p>
<p>I think the OP is fully entitled to feeling a little hurt. She needed to vent, she did so, and now she needs to release it for her own good.</p>
<p>I think she is better off deciding that she may not be entitled to feel hurt, and that nothing hurtful was intended. I think that is what some of us were trying to show by giving all kinds of perspectives on what happened. The siblings may end up thanking her later, or maybe they secretly wanted their dad to give them the dog, or felt that by not asking for help, brother was trying to keep them away, or any such possibilities that she will never know. </p>
<p>Better to think that they had their own valid reasons for doing what they did, and it was not a statement about what they think of OP or her brother. Easier to move on that way.</p>