This week has been monumental. You'd never know it because here I am, same old, same old. But some conversations, some stuff transpired that changed the way I look at my life and my future. Portentous, huh?

In writing this, I'm almost painfully aware that what I say here could sound like boasting, bragging, showing off. I cringe at that thought, because I hate that idea and it is not my intention. My intention is to tell my friends something that I hope they will like. I know I'm ducking and weaving, it's just...well...

Okay, as most readers of this blog know, my mother Joanne died in January of 2011. In the year plus since that terrible day, lots has happened. Traveling back to Connecticut in what might have been the worst January on record, with 11 feet of snow already on the ground, being helped through the week by family I barely remembered and friends from as far back as junior high school was amazing. My sister determining that she simply could not last another winter in New England and wanted to go "home" to Berkeley. Which she did last October. We spent several days in June to going through our mother's condo to decide what to keep, what to give away. Receiving money, signing forms, making decisions about the car (sold), the condo (not yet sold), getting the art appraised (not as valuable as Mom had thought) and dividing up jewelry, art, stuff (with absolutely no problems between us) my sister doing ALL the packing and arranging and getting the hell out of Dodge. Of course it barely snowed back in West Hartford this winter, but who was to know, right?

Our mother had not worked for years, but was on disability for a number of conditions, depression mostly due in large part to the physical pain and weakness she lived with due, probably, to post-polio syndrome.Her back was a disaster, her lungs a mess, her ability to tolerate pain meds was pretty iffy. She had really great taste. She had money put aside that went as far back as selling our family home back in the 1960s. And she had Howard.

Howard was my stepfather, although technically that's inaccurate. Mom and Howard were together for may years, getting married only a few years ago. They never lived together. That would have been the end of them. Howard had pretty serious OCD and had to have things a very certain way. He was very buttoned-down, literally (oh Brooks Brothers, yoo-hoo!) and figuratively. It took him, oh I don't remember, 20 years? To say "I love you" to my mother. This bugged her. But he cared deeply for her and cared for her, taking care of her financially to some degree. They went out to dinner every night, they took vacations, he bought her clothes and jewelry, paid her rent sometimes. They both benefited greatly from their life together. With all their differences, they had a really good life together. Just ask me or Pat or Jackie.

The last few years were awful. Howard fought cancer several times and held on, while very sick, for three, maybe four years. He lived for Mom's daily visits. He just wasn't there, and it hurt. Howard died in July of 2009. Of course we worried about Mom. She moved into a new condo with a friend and had, well, a good year or so. Then it got harder for her to leave the house, which made her crazy. She insisted on doing all she could for herself, often to her detriment. When my sister moved back to West Hartford from Boston, she found a place very near Mom. And did everything for her. I've told my sister that she extended our mother's life. Every day she did stuff for Mom, Mom did not have to. She didn't risk falling, driving badly, She wasn't so exhausted that she got ill. She lived another year, year and a half because my sister took on every little and big thing.

So after Howard died, Mom let us know that there wasn't the money there had once been. We knew that. Four years in a nice extended care facility ate up all he had. While I was aware that we stood to inherit from Howard, I so did not care. How can you? They took good care of my stepfather. I lived 3000 miles away and was almost never in touch. Except....

After Howard died, Mom informed us that there was still some money. She'd been sending me money for a while but had had to stop. She started again. I understood it only as from some account of Howard's.

When Mom died, we learned that there was money in this and that. And, the thing I never knew, that made me giggle because it was so unlikely, was that the $100 Mom was sending to me and to Pat (and the $500 Mom got) was from a trust fund that Howard had established in 1990. As it was a trust, this money did not go toward his nursing home, hospital and hospice care. It was untouchable.

For the last year and two months, Pat and I have adjusted to the simple fact of the trust. We haven't understood it but we've been in no hurry to do so. There's time. We consulted with each other on everything. We took more out, but not much. We talked about socially responsible investing. And we waited until some of the grief had passed, waited until we could think a little more clearly. Finally, after canceling two appointments, I sat down this week with a financial advisor who looked at the information I gave him, and the the stroke of a pen, and a few calculator keys, he made me understand that my mother and stepfather had done what Mom said they always wanted to do: they had set things up so I never had to worry again.

While it will still take months to work everything out, Patricia, Stu and I will start learning to breathe again. We've all lived on the edge. We've lived paycheck to paycheck, we've screwed up, we've experienced humiliating embarrassing situations. I've developed an utter terror of my checkbook. And it all stops very soon. We probably won't qualify as rich, but we will be...OKAY. Okay, in this context is on beyond zebra wonderful. We also own a condo which - oh please - will sell someday - but with the analysis provided by the advisor a few days ago, just looking at some simple numbers and figures and calculations, we will never live in that fear again.

I turned 59 a week ago. I don't remember what it's like to be able to take those metaphorical deep breaths. I hesitate to write all this down because we're taught not to discuss money. And I'm aware that in some cases I am already lucky. Both my sister and I make more than the average on SSDI; we both worked for years. My sister worked until basically several doctors told her to stop. She wasn't planning to. And she finally got Medicare (you don't get it right away when you go on SSDI. No, really!) and the drug plan helps us both. We both use wheelchairs and neither of us drives or has a vehicle. All that may change. What will change is that the bills will get paid, we won't be up nights sleepless and wretched with anxiety. We may be able to find better housing and make our homes more accessible.

I write all this in the hope that every one of you who ever commiserated with us, gave us a ride, a loan, lunch, a pass, a membership, a discount, a gift, a shoulder, can understand this reality. Know how grateful we are for you seeing us through. We hope we've always been appropriately grateful. We are soon going to be able to feel what passes for normal (given my pretty serious pain issues at this stage). We will continue buying stuff to make life easier - the coffee maker, the vacuum, the soda machine all do that. We need it. We need to take the easy way out.

It's a thin line between bragging, and telling of good fortune. It's my hope that this is okay and that this news is understood for what it is. We are going to be okay. That simple sentence means the world.