[id10t]

My brother's mother just died (94, been expecting it for 10 years or so). Incredibly kind woman, still had a thick Italian accent, wonderful cook, and talented seamstress (she was in charge of costume dept for UF's Drama dept for 30 years - I had the coolest Halloween costumes)

Wait? Brother's mother? OK... So My dad married her and brought her home from WW2 service in Italy. They adopted my brother, they got divorced, dad married my mom and they adopted me.

Anyway, what will make it interesting is that after my brother's wife cheated on him and got knocked up and they divorced, my brother decided to handle that by becoming a meth head. Lost his house, etc due to finances after divorce (no kiddie payment but all debt, about $200k worth, on a EMT salary). Then lost his job 'cause he's never tolerated a woman telling him what to do, and ignoring a woman in this case put a nice dent in a fire truck. That's when the "anything for a buzz" started, about 10 years ago.

Fully expect him to be hitting on my mom for money and all sorts of stuff. Fortunately, he's just hit the age he can draw his minimal retirement pay, and his mom didn't spend enough time in a nursing home for the state to garnish/take-it-all from her minimal estate (most of which is a small paid off home).