With the New Year came a welcome surprise because in all of the commotions that I had experienced last year with my mother passing, being beaten within an inch of my life, the loss of my baby girl, and my divorce I had forgotten all about my mother's estate that I had not bothered to settle. My mother's business partner Mr. Lincoln sent me a letter requesting a meeting with me. I quickly called Mr. Lincoln's office and his secretary answered the phone I explained who I was and that I had received a letter stating that Mr. Lincoln needed to meet with me to settle my mother's affairs. She set up a rather quick appointment the following afternoon at 2 PM. The following day I showed up at Mr. Lincoln's office and parked my SUV in the parking lot and stepped into the crisp white offices. Mr. Lincoln's secretary greeted me with a curt smile, "Hello, can I help you?" I smiled back at her and introduced myself, "Hi, I am Alexandria Swartz." She buzzed Mr. Lincoln and then turned back to me and said, "If you would have a seat Mr. Lincoln will be out shortly." I sat down in one of the highbacked leather chairs in the spacious room and waited patiently for Mr. Lincoln. After a few minutes, a grey-haired portly gentleman entered the room and came straight up to me and offered his hand, "Hello Ms. Swartz I'm Mr. Lincoln." I shook his hand and quickly said, "please call me AJ." "Ok, AJ if you will follow me we can get this meeting underway." I followed him into an office that had mahogany bookshelves lined with various law books and in the center was a huge desk, off to the side sat a leather couch and 2 high-backed leather chairs and in the center of that sat a beautiful oval glass-topped coffee table. Mr. Lincoln motioned me to the couch and I sat down and he sat in one of the chairs opposite of me. "AJ, I am not sure if you are aware of it or not but, your mom had a large life insurance policy in effect at the time of her passing and she also had quite a sizeable balance in her checking and savings account and according to her will she had named you her sole beneficiary." I sat there for a minute with my mouth gaping open because I had not realized that my mother had done any of this. When I finally recovered my voice I squeaked out, "Exactly how much are we talking about?" Mr. Lincoln referred to the paperwork that he had in a file and said, "it looks as though the total amount that you have is 2 million dollars." All I could do for a few moments was sit and stare at Mr. Lincoln because my mind could not piece together just how much my mom really loved and cared about me to make sure that even from beyond the grave I was going to be taken care of. The more the reality of it all set in that is when the tears started to slowly fall. Mr. Lincoln immediately jumped up and quickly handed me a handkerchief that he had in his suit pocket. "AJ I understand that this is all a big shock to you and I am so sorry that it had taken so long to get in touch with you. I can't imagine how much you have gone through this last year," he said. I took the handkerchief that he offered and wiped my tears away then slowly looked up at Mr. Lincoln, "thank you so much for finding me and this is really going to help me make a fresh start with my life," I said. The rest of the meeting with Mr. Lincoln went by in a blur of paperwork and a ton of signatures after which I stepped out of the offices with a new purpose in life.
