Posted by Loulou on Aug 14, 2014 | 2 comments

This is really funny. Read on…

The Will

 Doug Smith is on his deathbed and knows the end is near.

 His nurse, wife, daughter and 2 sons are with him.

 Mr. Smith asks for two witnesses to be present and a camcorder be in place to record his last wishes.  When all is ready he begins to speak:

 “My son, Bernie, I bequeath to you the Mayfair houses.”

 “My daughter, Sybil, I leave you the apartments at the East End.”

“My son, Jamie, I give you the offices over in the City Centre.”

“Sarah, my dear wife, please take all the residential buildings on the banks of the river.”

 The nurse and witnesses are blown away as they did not realize his extensive holdings. As ole Doug slips away, the nurse  says, “Mrs. Smith, your husband must have been such a hard-working man to have accumulated all this property”. 

 Sarah replies, “Property? …. the jerk had a paper route!”

That was a joke sent to mama and she laughed and laughed.

Well, this is sort of a new area for mama. She and her brother, when their last parent died, simply split up a few things that their mama had designated for them and then asked one another, “Do you want this?” or “Shall we give this away or sell this?” and frankly, there was not a huge amount of objects about which to decide, and it all went smoothly with no dissention, and then mama and her brother went out to a very nice dinner and toasted their wonderful mama and each went on his way, both to California but two different cities and that was that. Except for the grief.

I see that that was easy for them, and that the things didn’t really matter except for sweet memories because they were both so, so sad to lose their amazing mama that everything else took a back seat to that terrible event.

But mama has observed over the years that things are different from this in many families. There is a kind of ‘what’s mine is mine and what’s my mother’s and father’s is mine, too’, when they’re gone. There are even laws in Europe about inheriting and who is entitled to what as far as children are concerned, and mama finds that this creates an atmosphere of assumption that when the parents go, the kids take all.

Of course, this could mean the debts, too, no?

I think what I’d like to say is that if something happened to my mama and papa, I would be more concerned that I didn’t have their snuggles and warm bodies to sleep next to and nice dinners coming my way and a clean litter box and a nice garden to jump around in and I wouldn’t be all that obsessed with my pretty sleeping comforter and my little nametag and all those toys (they hope!) I play with. I would be very, very sad and sorry they were not part of my life any longer as my anthro mama and papa. I would be alone. Oh, the kitty tears…

So when mama sees kids anticipating their inheritance, large or small, she wishes they would think more about having a loving time in the present with their mamas and papas and not dwell so often on what they are going to get out of the demise of those they love. Maybe some kids don’t love their parents as much as others. Maybe some kids simply don’t put much effort in trying to work in their lifetimes instead of lounging around in their parents’ home waiting for the money (or house, or whatever there might be), and mama always cites a wonderful song by Billie Holiday that she heard all through her youth when she was around a lot of musicians. And she has always believed in it as a reminder.

Some of the lyrics are these:

“Your mama may have, and your papa may have, but God bless the child that’s got his own…that’s got his own.”

Well, I’m thinkin’ up things I can do to have my own, and I think I’m gonna start a training school for Jack Russells (and other doggy-types) called “School for Scoundrels.”

I know people will pay for THAT! And I’ll love being on my own four paws.

First, I’ll teach ’em how to sleep in a graceful position.

Then I’ll show ’em how to iron their papa’s jeans.