I used to think there were certain things you simply knew about your family.<\/p>\n
You knew who worked hard.<\/p>\n
You knew who struggled.<\/p>\n
You knew who had money and who didn't.<\/p>\n
At least, that was what I believed.<\/p>\n
Grandma's check made me question how much confidence I had placed in those assumptions.<\/p>\n
I had never thought of her as someone who could write a check for six million dollars.<\/p>\n
The amount seemed to belong to another kind of life.<\/p>\n
A life I had seen in newspapers and films, but never expected to touch my own.<\/p>\n
Yet her handwriting was unmistakable.<\/p>\n
I couldn't explain that away.<\/p>\n
I also couldn't pretend that recognizing her signature meant I understood her financial circumstances.<\/p>\n
Those were two separate things.<\/p>\n
For years, I had accepted what I knew about Grandma without asking many questions.<\/p>\n
She was part of the family.<\/p>\n
I was her grandson.<\/p>\n
We had our familiar relationship, and I had never felt a need to examine it too closely.<\/p>\n
Now I wondered whether I had mistaken familiarity for knowledge.<\/p>\n
It was an uncomfortable thought.<\/p>\n
I didn't like admitting that there might be important things about someone I loved that I had never considered.<\/p>\n
But the check was forcing me to face that possibility.<\/p>\n
I kept returning to the amount.<\/p>\n
Six million dollars.<\/p>\n
The number had become a kind of test.<\/p>\n
Whenever I tried to think about Grandma as I had known her, the check interrupted me.<\/p>\n
Whenever I imagined what the money might mean, I remembered that the bank had not finished its review.<\/p>\n
I was caught between what I recognized and what I couldn't explain.<\/p>\n
The practical part of my mind kept telling me to wait.<\/p>\n
The rest of me wanted to understand everything immediately.<\/p>\n
I knew which side was being reasonable.<\/p>\n
I wasn't always good at listening to it.<\/p>\n
I began thinking about the other people who had received checks.<\/p>\n
My parents had theirs.<\/p>\n
Eric had his.<\/p>\n
Olivia had hers.<\/p>\n
Aunt Diane and Uncle Martin had also been included.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether they had known more about Grandma's circumstances than I did.<\/p>\n
Then I stopped myself.<\/p>\n
There was no reason to assume they had.<\/p>\n
I had no evidence that Grandma had explained her decision to anyone.<\/p>\n
I couldn't even say whether the others had asked the same questions I had.<\/p>\n
I was trying to understand an event that involved several people without knowing what any of them thought.<\/p>\n
That was a poor foundation for a conclusion.<\/p>\n
Still, I couldn't help imagining the family sitting together and discussing the checks.<\/p>\n
I wondered what the first person had said when the amount became clear.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether anyone had laughed because the whole thing seemed impossible.<\/p>\n
I wondered whether anyone had immediately become serious.<\/p>\n
Those were only pictures in my head.<\/p>\n
I had no reason to treat them as memories.<\/p>\n
The distinction mattered.<\/p>\n
I taught students that a convincing interpretation wasn't necessarily a correct one.<\/p>\n
I should have remembered that lesson before allowing my imagination to fill in the spaces around my grandmother's decision.<\/p>\n
The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the money itself wasn't the only thing unsettling me.<\/p>\n
It was the sudden awareness that I had been making assumptions about someone whose life I had never fully understood.<\/p>\n
I had treated her circumstances as familiar because she was familiar to me.<\/p>\n
That was my mistake.<\/p>\n
I didn't know what had led her to write the checks.<\/p>\n
I didn't know what she expected from the people receiving them.<\/p>\n
I didn't know whether she had anticipated the confusion they would cause.<\/p>\n
All I knew was that she had made a decision, and I was now living with its consequences.<\/p>\n
I couldn't change that by guessing.<\/p>\n
So I tried to stop.<\/p>\n
I let the questions remain questions.<\/p>\n
I reminded myself that the bank's review was still a separate matter, with its own requirements and timetable.<\/p>\n
There was no point pretending those procedures had been completed.<\/p>\n
There was no point acting as though I understood Grandma's reasons.<\/p>\n
And there was certainly no point turning an unexpected check into a complete explanation of a person.<\/p>\n
I had wanted the bank to tell me whether I could trust the paper.<\/p>\n
It had given me a reason to believe the check was genuine.<\/p>\n
What I wanted now was something no bank could provide.<\/p>\n
I wanted to understand my grandmother.<\/p>\n
For the first time, I realized that I might have to begin by admitting how little I knew.<\/p>\n
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