Inheritances Suck.

Any Grey’s Anatomy fans out there? Raise your hands, anyone?

I’m not really a Grey’s fan at this point – TV shows don’t last long with me. I’ll start out dedicated, then miss a week and watch it later on my DVR, then miss another week but forget to watch it before the next week so then I’m 2 weeks behind, and eventually Austin says “you have 10 grey’s episodes on the DVR, do you still need them?” To which I always reply, “Nah, I don’t watch that anymore. Go ahead and delete them.” That’s how I’ve lost touch with so many TV shows over the last few years. In fact, the only shows that hasn’t happened with are Private Practice and American Idol. I’m sure they are both doomed too, but for now they’re holding strong.

I was a Grey’s fan at one point though, and I want you to remember an episode with me. Izzy, one of the interns at Seattle Grace Hospital, had fallen in love and gotten engaged (did they get married???) to one of her patients, Denny Duket. She even risked her job and the jobs of her friends in order to nearly kill him so that he could then get a heart transplant. This is real-life stuff, ABC! After all of this, Denny ended up passing away and the guilt overtook Izzy’s body.

Then came the inheritance check.

Izzy wasn’t aware, but Denny was a millionaire and left her somewhere near $8.5 million (if my number-brain serves me well here). In her grief, she was unable to cash the check (HA who “cashes” that large of a check?) She held it in her hands, hung it on her fridge, and stared at it in near disgust. I never understood why she couldn’t just go deposit the check. She didn’t have to SPEND the money right away, she didn’t even have to spend a dime of it. She could invest it or let it sit in a savings account or donate it to charities or SOMETHING OTHER THAN STARE AT IT ON THE FRIDGE. This side of Izzy irritated me and the longer she let a multi-million dollar check be held up by a dime store magnet on a community refrigerator, the more frustrated I got.

Because I didn’t get it.

Never in my life have I thought about the concept of an inheritance. I’ve never dreamt of what I’d do or thought of what long-lost rich relative I may have lurking, just waiting to give me that break to financial freedom. I’ve never even thought about the how’s or why’s of inheriting anything. I was raised in a home that believed in Jesus Christ as our Savior. I was taught not to store up my wealth here on earth, where moth and rust can destroy, but to store up my life in Heaven. Money keeps the world spinning, sure, and we all need it to get by. But we were not raised in a greedy home or where monetary or materialistic values had any room to grow. So I’ve never put two thoughts into the idea of an inheritance.

Until now. Until I sit here, staring at my copy Mimi’s will while reflecting on the conversation I had with the attorney today. It doesn’t matter if I’ve inherited $10 or $10,000,000 (I can guarantee you, though, it was not the latter) – I’m still staring at it in the same manner. In disgust.

This is it? This is what her wonderful lifetime has come to? This is what is left to define our relationship? She could have left me with everything or she could have left me with nothing, and none of that changes the fact that inheritances just suck. In order to inherit something, someone has to die. There’s a hole in my heart, and this is supposed to fill it?

They want to sell her house, and the attorney asked me, “Does receiving a check by ____ sound good? That sounds good right?” I was shocked. Does it sound good? No, it doesn’t. Having my grandmother alive and well sounds good lady, a check sounds cheap. So I’m sorry that I’m not bouncing off the walls with excitement, but a check sounds far from good. It sounds disappointing, if you’re asking. There is no amount of money in the world that could equal the intrinsic value Mimi added to my life. There are no diamonds or yachts or deserted islands or any other item that could possibly be left in a will that could make me think “Ahh, good trade Amanda. Good trade”. When it comes to Mimi, there is no substitute for me. There is no trade.

I do realize that the house has to be sold and that our lives must go on. But I’m not ready to “cash in my inheritance”. I’m not ready to “claim my prize”. I’m not ready, because I’m not ready to accept that this is it. That I don’t have a choice between Mimi and a “yacht” – I just have a “yacht” (or whatever fills the blank there). Not for the first time in my life, I’m eating my words as I am no longer irritated by Izzy’s character and in fact I can sympathize.

Maybe I’ll hang it on my fridge for awhile.