A good friend of mine who sadly was niftar a few years ago, shared this sad but not uncommon story. Hers had a happyish outcome. She had insisted that if I were ever to write about it, that I change any identifying features so as not to embarrass her siblings who did not show her any iota of consideration as she did for them. She did not want to besmirch their reputations, and hence negatively impact any unmarried children’s shiddichum.
Leah married late, and her short-lived marriage did not produce any children. She doted on her nieces and nephews and always bought them expensive gifts for their milestone birthdays, graduations, and marriages. She had worked for decades as an office administrator for a big company and had disposable income.
Over the years she had lent her siblings large sums of money to help them pay for tuition, rents, smachot, etc., but to their credit, they eventually paid her back, although sometimes it took years. She was okay waiting.
When her parents, frail Holocaust survivors were hospitalized over the years, she would be the “hospital daughter” over Shabbat and Yomim Tovim. She understood that she was the” logical” choice to do so since she had no spouse or children to make Shabbat for, and rarely any guests.
Leah was happy to give her parents the life-enhancing peace of mind of knowing they had an articulate advocate to monitor their care.
Her siblings never showed any hakarat hatov, by giving her a gift certificate to a restaurant or a clothing store – it was expected of her to give up her opportunities to celebrate with her friends – both married and single.
As she didn’t fit in with their married guests, Leah was rarely invited to their homes.
Whereas good-hearted Leah went the proverbial “extra mile,” her siblings couldn’t be bothered giving her an extra inch.
In terms of social currency that would enhance their own standing, she had none. Decades ago, divorce was still relatively rare and divorcees were looked down upon, as if they had a big red D on their foreheads. She was an outlier.
Ironically her siblings have divorced children and grandchildren like everybody in the community.
No one is looking down their noses like they used to, or worried divorce is contagious.
But this article isn’t about Leah’s relationship with her siblings. Over the years, I have heard so many stories of indifferent siblings or extended family who don’t respect their single sibling.
Leah’s story goes beyond this into the realm of geneiva.
When Leah’s mother passed away a few years after her husband, her eldest sibling had power of attorney. Only a portion of what was willed to Leah was released.
Months and years passed and when she asked for the rest, Leah was told that she would receive the rest when a business investment was sold. Leah truly believed that her mother’s money no longer was there – that it had been invested in order to generate money for her care as in the last years of her life, as she had become an invalid. And that it was tied truly up. Why else, Leah rationalized, would her three times a day davening with a minyan sibling withhold her yerusha, the money her mother left for her?
Years passed, the investment was still “tied up” but Leah now had serious health issues and was no longer able to work. She kept on asking for what her mother had wanted her to have for her own older age.
Each time she was rebuffed. “You will get the money when I sell my investment,” she was repeatedly told. Leah’s friends told her to hire a lawyer, but her experiences and high expenses for what should have been an easy divorce had left her financially and emotionally traumatized.
But her story has a unique twist. Her sibling’s child had been married for several years and had no children. The doctors were puzzled as there was no medical reason for their infertility. And then one day, a light bulb went off. Over the years, she told me she had read stories in various women’s magazines where people inexplicably had financial setbacks, children having trouble meeting their bashert and no children being born to their young couples. When approaching their rabbeim, they were told there was an obstacle in their past that they needed to remove. It could be someone they wronged and they needed to get mechila, or to return an object that didn’t belong to them, etc. The issue needed to be rectified.
In the magazine story, the person fixed the problem and the barriers were removed. Leah suggested that perhaps the young couple’s infertility was tied to her sibling hanging on to her money, for so many years.
After a few months, Leah was given her money, albeit not what she would have gotten if she had been able to invest it years earlier. And to her surprise and delight, because she was fond of them, a baby was born to the young couple.
Sadly, Leah’s health deteriorated – I believe that chronic stress made her vulnerable to the stoke that eventually killed her but she was able to afford full-time caregivers in her last months, and a burial in Israel, that she had always hoped for.
