There is a lot about my father’s finances that don’t make sense to me, and highlight two facts. First, his stroke in 2018 impacted him far more than I realized and second, I should have been more insistent that he let me help him with everything. I have so many questions that have no answers and today I discovered another one.
Looking at an IRA my mother has, that has always seemed like too little for what it is, I noticed that in April of last year $80,000 left the account. My question, of course, is why, and where did it go. There is so much where did it go that I feel like I am losing my mind. Around 2018 my father did a 1031 exchange of a Wendy’s he owned in Maryland. With that he bought a few properties, and without full records I am not sure they total the amount of the Wendy’s or not.
Shortly after that there was a fire at our home in Fairfax and my father sold it. I do not think he did any exchange for it but I can’t remember. He also then sold my condo, which annoyed me as I was the one paying the mortgage and he was only a co-signer, and exchanged that for either a commercial property or a townhome.
My father, during this time, was private to a fault. When someone has a stroke a piece of their brain dies. It never comes back. Studies have shown it is frequently the part of the brain that has to do with empathy. My father growing less trusting and more private could have been a side effect of that. I also had children around this time and my own life was getting busier.
Seeing that $80,000 dip in graph form this morning highlights everything I don’t know. Like he bought a $300,000 car using his line of credit but that wasn’t paid off when he sold the car and that money seemingly disappeared into the ether.
My father was never someone that would let money disappear or walk out the door without good reason, but here are all these examples of it doing just that, but at the end of the day thinking about it or trying to figure it out is useless. The future lies in front of us, not behind us, and that is the direction we must head.
David Huzzard Writes 