For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for July 14, 2021

The heirloom bout round 2

And sometimes the item in question was physically given away years prior with no grand announcements.

Phil wants the organ because he’s the musician in the family, isn’t he?

I think they should put everything in a action. and go home with the money.

This is why people need a ‘living will’ to help relatives decide, first of all, how to take care of an ill person who needs some care and can no longer take care of him or herself, and, secondly, who should get what things (including whether things should go to a charity of the owner’s choice..)

Well, your brother IS a musician, after all. What will you do with the pipe organ? Make caterwauling noises?

When it’s a “Went without saying” situation, it’s amazing how many different directions it “went” depending on who you ask.

Many years ago we bought a decent piano (spinet, I think). More recently we bought an electric keyboard. Hopefully the kids will fight over the piano.

And now it starts. Besides, who’s to say that the parents didn’t already sell it?

This could lead to some hot arguments. Fortunately, they are heading to British Columbia where it rains a lot. And maybe that will cool tempers down a bit.

The goes without saying if I remember, Phil is a high school music teacher. Why would El want a pipe organ? Does she want to start a church choir in her house?

Interesting goof here, if we go by the traditional position of maps in the northern hemisphere that going to the right is east and left is west. Most people in the U.S. looking at Canada (except Alaska) would think so. Even though Ellie and Phil live near Toronto, Canada and they are flying to Vancouver which is in the west, the plane here is flying east to the east coast!

I hope they can settle this amicably without any hard feelings about the pump organ or anything else. It’s a shame how families fight over things and sometimes siblings stop speaking to each other because one of them took something another wanted. I think my sister helped herself to all of my mother’s things after she died but she was the one who cleaned out the house before selling it. That’s a lot of work. I was not able to help because I moved to Canada. And my brother is still working on my dad’s house after 15 years! He may eventually sell it but the housing market is pretty bad now. I don’t begrudge my siblings from taking things from the houses since they did all the work.

Although I am not really religious, I appreciate the Jewish representation w/ the man in front of them!

20 years before my grandmother went to the nursing home, she has her children divvy up all of her antiques and valuables so there would be no confusion over who got what. During the intervening years both my parents passed away. My brothers and I assumed that whatever our mother was supposed to get would be divided between the three of us, just like a financial inheritance would, and as happened after my grandmother died. So it was the day to move everything out of my grandmothers apartment. All the family members were gathered to move everything out of the apartment. those living outside the city helped move everything down to the moving van and loaded their items and left. We sorted out which homes things were going to as some of my aunts and uncles were giving their things directly to their children. One of my cousins asked about where I was on the list (I was only 24 at the time and not someone who spoke up for myself) and we were told that after my mother had died that grandmother had divided everything between her surviving children, and there was nothing to go to my place except a few dishes no one wanted and the open packages of food from her cupboards. I was the unpaid labourer for the day.

“The pump organ? We sold that six months ago fo $100. Who wants to drag that dusty thing around”.

“Why?” Because Phil is a musician and you are a roundtuit Ellie.

…and written and signed.

Marian the pot-holder burner and Elly will get to work cleaning the house, they will look at a sheet of Inverted Jenny stamps, then look at a musical instrument and say “Strad-a-who-vius?”, and then see a copy of Superman #1 and say “Comic books are worthless, as is this other crap” and leave it out for the trash collector.

Which one can actually play the organ?

I thought they already agreed that Phil would get the organ… or maybe they just discussed it but never came to an agreement..

If it isn’t said it isn’t understood.

Elly and Phil, please try to be civil. Canada has enough problems already with the violence and church burnings.

Things that go without saying do need saying — that’s a word of advice for all of us. Eventually it’s too late to say them.

Sounds like my sibling and I, with my mom’s wedding ring, she determined to get that and then combined with her own, mom did have a different diamond ring a cluster in align diamond ring she also worn I gained that one. Few things she did take, for me not enough house so we sold what we could.

Memories are worth more than money, they are priceless.

Kinda makes sense that the organ would go to the musician in the family. After all, what would Ellie do with it?

Whoever has the room for it, gets it.

And so the bickering begins…

I actually inherited the pump organ I had always loved when I was a kid. It has been sitting at my house unplayed for twenty years.

well, isn’t he a musician? I would think the musician would appreciate an antique musical instrument so much more than someone who will likely just use it as a piece of furniture.

Looks like we’re in for a week or two of sibling bickering about that pump organ. It will probably be resolved by Jim & Marian in unexpected ways.

My Mother-in-Law was a woman of great wisdom. Though there was little prospect of my wife and her siblings disputing who got what, she directed that the best furniture be sold, and the money divided.

Ain’t that the truth. And oftentimes it isn’t the things itself, but the memories and stories attached to them.

Didn’t we go through this whole pipe organ discussion a while back when they first heard about the folks moving?

Here it comes. These face offs almost invariably never end well.

Love the eagerness in both for the childhood items. The nostalgic times are the best times of life.