THE TRUST AGREEMENT
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THE TRUST AGREEMENT |
| Contrary to mother's contention that I would take control of her money and spend it all, there were safeguards put into place to prevent exactly that issue from occurring. I conferred with mother's broker and between us, we set up a series of tiered investments that paid off in intervals which would occur just about the time her payments would be due for her rent at the assisted living facility. It had been arranged that any funds left over from the released funds would be re-invested back to generate new income. Mother was to keep her Social Security check for her spending, which funds constituted about $900 a month, not factoring in annual increases. With no expenses and the Trust account paying her bills, this was exactly what she had been receiving all along. What was removed from her control was the $10,000 annual farm rent, which was what she as dumping into the casino, so it was doing her no good to continue giving in to her demands. The assisted living home, which she insisted she wanted, would have given her close companions, the medical and counseling attention she needed and a healthier outreach for her time than the mindless and unhealthy activities that gambling represented. But her disease would not let her go and like the alcoholic, she did not want the cure for by this time, they were so deeply wed to one another, she could not let it go. The first words out of her mouth once she arrived at the nursing home was to ask how soon she would be well enough to take the trip back to the casino. . .the same story she reiterated each time she went into the hospital. In fact, she spent the night before each hospital visit gambling until check-in time and as soon as she was released, she headed right straight back there again. Here, then is the Trust agreement that she signed. And no, contrary to what she insisted, she was not strong-armed into signing this. It was notarized officially and witnessed by her niece, who helped to write it. And no, nobody paid off the notary public, who didn't know any of us from Adam and who would not have risked his license on her behalf or ours. He spoke with her at length before he allowed her to sign it and only after satisfied that she understood the contents did he notarize the document and allowed us all to sign. Had he felt she did not understand what she was signing, he would have refused to notarize the document. As you can see from the initials at the bottom of each page, mother had ample opportunity to read each page carefully before initialing the page and ultimately signing it. If she did not understand what she was signing, she had ample opportunity to decline, but did not and did not raise an objection until her desire to return to uncontrolled gambling reared its ugly head again. Like the alcoholic deprived of the bottle, she roared out her protest. This was not mother speaking, it was the disease demanding to be fed and objecting to the cure. The withdrawal was more than she could handle. Her immediate actions were to alter everything so she could return to her addiction and if she could not alter it, then she had to destroy it so she could resume the self-destructional path upon which she now was consumed to follow. |
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