As an added bonus, my car broke today and needs about $1500 worth of work which I don’t have. It needs an alternator, serpentine belt, battery, tune up, upper and lower tie rod ends on the driver's side front, and I have two rims that need replaced because they are bent and causing my tires to wear uneven. This is the car that my Father left to me when he died. I was with him when he bought it twelve years ago and jokingly asked him if I could have it someday when we were driving it home. He said when he was six feet under that he didn't care what I did with it.
Well, I was in need of a car the year before he died and he signed the car over to me and I was supposed to make him payments. I only ever made one payment to him and he knew I really couldn't afford the payments. I had been very manic during that year before he had cancer and spent my money on everything but my bills. Anyway, he never said anything to me about it and continued on like there was nothing wrong. The week before he died it was spring time and he would sit slumped over in a chair on the back screened in porch looking at the ground.
When my Dad died about a week later he was insolvent which means that he had more debt than assets. I think he knew this and felt horrible. Anyway, all of the credit cards my parents had were in his name only. Also my Dad fixed it so that when he died my Mom was to get his full social security and pension and I think that he thought that she would just drown in debt. What he didn't know was that federal law says that federal benefit payments like Social Security benefits, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits, Veteran’s (VA) benefits, Railroad Retirement benefits, benefits from the Office of Personnel Management, and private pension benefits are not subject to garnishment in most cases. This meant that all the money he set up for my Mom to collect was exempt. Additionally, her name wasn't attached to any of their credit cards.
So I told my Mom to STOP paying the bills on the credit cards that were in his name only. She consulted with a tax attorney who advised the same thing. We got a lot of calls but since they were his debts and my parents had a trust that switched the house in to her name upon his death there was nothing they could do. There was nothing these bill collectors could collect. In the end I helped my Mom wipe out over $47,000 in debt.
Anyway getting back to that old car. A couple of weeks after my Dad died my Mom handed me this piece of legal paper and on it my Dad had wrote "2001 Mercury, Paid In Full" in the worst handwriting I had ever seen. He had written that note to me the week before he died when he was sitting outside slumped in a chair. Cars was what me and my Dad always talked about. When I was a kid we would go out and look at cars all the time. It was the one thing that I did with Dad that nobody else did. Anyway, that old Mercury Grand Marquis is the last link to my Dad and I have to find a way to get it fixed. The best part of that car is that he bought it when he retired and owned it free and clear. He gave me the opportunity to have independence and now I have to find the tools to keep that independence. Thank you Dad, I miss you, love you, and think about you all the time. I pray that you can see the positive impact you had on so many lives.
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| '01 Mercury Grand Marquis that Dad left to me. |
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