48: Last Will

Air Force Thunderbirds

The summer before Frank was arrested, we took him on vacation with our family to our beach condo in Ocean City, Maryland. It was the annual Ocean City Air Show and we knew Frank would love it, because, of course we do too. He loves anything military, especially Army, from his time being in the Army Reserves. We sat on the beach with a cooler of sandwiches and drinks watching the air show over the ocean all day. Highlights were the C-130 cargo plane, it's amazing to see that enormous plane flying by. The F-18 Hornet is just absolutely thrilling when it flies by and you hear that incredible sonic boom a few seconds later. The star of the show is the Air Force Thunderbirds. They do those amazing tricks and fly-bys and it was definitely worth waiting for. That night on the boardwalk the Navy Seal Parachute team parachuted down onto the boardwalk and jogged past us and into the event tent. Those guys are true rock stars, and each one more handsome than the next. It was a great time and thinking back I am so happy that we were able to spend some good times with him while we could.

That weekend we thought it was time to talk about his will. It was hard to bring up, but something that we realized was necessary. Not that he had any money or any items of value. The few things he might have had were left at his house the day he had to leave it when Kat got her PFA. There is a divorce settlement pending though and we were expecting that at some point in the future Kat would be forced to pay Frank what she owes him, just a basic dividing things down the middle settlement, but it could be a significant amount of money. Matt said "Frank, we have to talk about your will."
Frank answered, "I'm going to live forever. I feel great."
I said, "I know Frank, I feel the same way, but it's good to be prepared anyway."
Matt asked, "What do you want to do Frank, you want to leave everything to your kids?"
Frank answered, "yeah, that's good."
I said to Matt later, "Why would he want to leave his kids anything. They know he's not well and they don't care. They could call him if they wanted to, they're not little kids any more. He spends more time with us and our kids than his own. We're his family now. I think we should suggest leaving everything to his beloved niece and nephews; you know, the ones that actually care about him and spend time with him."
"Susie, you know how much he loves Frannie and Eric. In the end, I want them to know that no matter what they did, or didn't do, that their father still loved them more than anything in the world. It doesn't matter how long the distance or how deep the hurt, in the end, they were still the most important thing to him. That's what a father does, and that's what Frank would want." Matt explained.
He has a good argument, but I'm a little angry at them and I wish I could ask them to explain themselves. "Frances hasn't called Blaise since he asked her to call her dad for his birthday, and she dropped him and Brett from Facebook too. What's with that?
Matt insisted, "Well, after we pay off his debts, there probably won't be anything left anyway, but I'll try to make sure there's a few dollars left so they know he still thought of them . . . and Kat will know that if she hadn't dragged this out for so long that her kids would have gotten all the money right back instead of it going to your cousin's attorney fees."