What would you do?

This question is probably going to make some people cringe. If you remember my old profile, I moved in with my mom about 5 years ago to take care of her. My other three siblings and their spouses did next to nothing to help with my mom’s care. We finally sold the house this past November, and the estate was settled in early January.

Now because of my health, I only have a part-time job. My rent is roughly $1,800 a month and my total inheritance was only $55, 000. It would have been more, but before we sold the house, my sister had paid the first 6 months or so of my rent so I could move out of my mom’s house, with the understanding that it would come out of my share of the inheritance.

My brother, who’s pretty comfortable money-wise, let me and my older sister, who is also struggling a bit, know that he was going to share a percentage of his inheritance with the both of us. I thanked him profusely and in January, they let me know on Facebook messenger that they were going to be giving us a total of $28,400 each. Because of gift tax laws, they would send us each $17,000 this year, which they’ve already done, and then send the balance next year.

Imagine my shock when yesterday I got a check in the mail from them for $2,000, with a note on it saying that this was a check for the rest of the inheritance. I stewed over this all day yesterday. I’m thinking, what happened to the other $9,000? At first I told myself to leave it alone because I should be grateful for anything they had given me, but after laying awake this morning for a while stressing over this significant amount of money, I went and found the message they had sent me and took a screenshot. I then sent it to my brother and asked as nicely as possible, what happened that they were giving so much less now.

I may have caused an irreparable family breach over this, I don’t know. The thing is, my brother and I haven’t been close for years, and he was very bullying while I was taking care of our mom. I figured, even if something came up where they could no longer afford to give as much, they at least owed me the honesty of an explanation. Because it’s not like they just ended up giving me $500 less or something. That’s probably 6 months rent for me and I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do when the money runs out anyway.

So would you have done what I did? Or how would you have handled it?