Where does one start? At the beginning? Mid way through? Or at the ending? These were the questions that were facing me as I sat in a room surrounded by people. Trying to get my head around the changes that were in front of me. You see, I had just inherited a large wealth that was life changing & I knew that how I lived from week to week would no longer be an issue.
My husband and I were your typical gay couple. Married for years, raised kids, worked hard in our jobs and wanted to spend our twilight years travelling to far and exotic places, although only turned 50, in gay years, we were ancient. We'd saved. We had good superannuation and we knew that at the end of the day, once realised, we would make it work.
Coming from a large family, I had several siblings that I was never really close to, and parents that I could best describe as distant. For what ever reason, we never clicked, although my love for my mother was always strong and respectful. But we were never close. Being the youngest child, I was always different from my siblings, and never thought much about it growing up. I knew early on in life that I was the "late edition" to the family, and was singled out as different my whole upbringing. It was life in Sydney Australia in the 70's and most kids my age was just going about their thing. I never had reason to question anything, I always had a good roof over my head, a good education, friends, activities, what else could I ask for.
One night whilst sitting at home, my phone rang with an unknown number from overseas displayed. I thought it was the usual scammer trying to either sell me something, get my bank account details, or God forbid, I was related to a dead Nigerian prince who had left me a princely sum of money, and I should wire my bank details ASAP. Instead, it was a German lady `representing' the estate of woman who had died and through tracing I was the only heir left in the chain. Yeah yeah I thought being overly suspicious of such scams, and quickly hanging up to avoid any scamming. 2 minutes later the phone rang again. The same number and the same woman. I kept hanging up as over and over and over she was trying to plead with me to hear her out. Eventually I did and what I was told would change my life for ever.
Eva Von Garbner was an heiress herself who was born in 1923 and have lived a privileged life to the only daughter of Germany's biggest banking & industrialist families, her self having only had one daughter out of wedlock, and much to her families' shame. Her daughter, in a repeat of circumstances, had her own bastard son, but, rather than face the repeated shame, she was exiled to give birth, and put up for adoption with no word ever mentioned again of his name or whereabouts. That son was me. I needed proof, but I also needed answers. My head was reeling from this news. This unknown woman on the end of the phone knew too much about me, my family, my background to be a phone scam. Where I lived, where I worked, where I grew up, my school, my family....... There was just so much she knew, yet to me, she was a stranger. After about an hour she convinced me to keep this quiet until we could meet face to face in a week's time, and she would explain and go through everything she knew.
That night my husband and I tried to speculate on what was what and where it would lead to, and if indeed it were true. At this stage we had no reason to doubt what I was told, and we had no idea just how large the inheritance was. All we could do was wait.
Four days later, my German Lady called again to say she had arrived in Sydney, and was eager to meet up. She suggested the hotel where she was staying, which was ok by me, as it was fairly open, and not far from home. We agreed on a time for the next morning, and again she asked if I had spoken to anyone about our previous call. This alone heightened my anxiety around the meeting.
The next morning at 10am, I arrived at the hotel and asked for her by name at reception. They directed me to one of the smaller meeting rooms just off the lobby. Approaching the door, my ever positive husband reached out and grabbed my hand giving it a squeeze of encouragement and whispered the words, "we've got this." It was what I needed as I knocked on the door and pushed through to what awaited.
It started formally with introductions of the 4 people in the room. Greta, who had phoned me, Stefan, her principle advisor, William her legal counsel & Klaus, who represented the family of the deceased. Formalities over I sat and listened to a tale of woe that changed my life, my family, my upbringing and everything I knew to be correct. I was adopted. I was adopted as a young infant to the people I thought were my parents, and a sibling to those I thought were blood relatives. How it came about remained a blur as I tried to take in all details and listen to what I was being told. At that point the smallest details were not getting through as my brain was cast into over drive to try and take in every piece of detail spewing forth at 100mph.
Sitting there for an hour as this was unravelling, my desire to get up and run had overtaken me and raised from the chair and walked out of the room, the hotel, and onto the streets of Sydney in the sun of a late Autumn morning. I just walked, alone. Where I was going I couldn't tell you. My phone in my pocket was ringing constantly and text messages beeping at an alarming rate. It was about half an hour before I found myself again in the hotel lobby. Seeking for my husband. To be reassured that I was ok and not going insane. That what I was being told was true, and that I wasn't hearing things.
Eventually I walked back in to the room and faced my fears. A coffee surely helped, although I was thinking a vodka would have been my preferred choice. Greta, who had now switched to become a warmer version of herself, empathically checked on my well being, and wanted to get back in to the main reason she was there. My inheritance. It was revealed that my mother' had died in tragic circumstances in the 80s from a drug overdose and that my maternal grandmother, having no direct heirs had only recently passed away aged 98, leaving no direct descendants, except myself, and having an estimated wealth of some $50 billion USD. Again, I needed Vodka. This was all just too surreal. Her will had stipulated that her estate be passed on to her next surviving direct descendent, in full, with me being the only one left. I was stunned, shocked, and could not even start to imagine what that sort of wealth was like. Yeah, we had a house in the suburbs, we'd purchased well when we were young, we drove nice cars, had good paying jobs, but $50B was just not even possible to imagine. I was waiting for the catch. The gotcha moment. I guess a candid camera moment where I was set up and told it was a joke. But the more I waited, the less it seemed to appear. Stipulations were laid out, as a high net worth individual I would have to have 24/7 security with me at all times, and we could no longer live in our home, but would need to move to Germany ideally as that was where the business that I had now inherited was based, and I had a lot of work ahead of me. But first there was one thing I needed to do. Confront my family. I needed answers and I guess closure before I could move forward with my life. The why's, the when, the what..... My life had been a lie. For 51 years I had believed in something and blamed myself for my unhappiness and disassociation from my family, when in fact they'd lied, kept secrets and willingly lead me to believe that I was making shit up in my head. It was not the case.
By the time I had left the meeting it was early evening and I was spent. My brain was in overload and I just was exhausted. It was enough to make you want to scream, but instead, we had to push on with life and start to seek answers. My parents had retired some 20 years ago to an ideal coastal town, some 4 hours south of Sydney and were enjoying their life doing the mundane. They travelled, they gardened, they played golf, they were pillars of the local community and staunch conservatives in their political leanings. Dad was a retired Accountant and Mum was a retired Lawyer. People always sought their advice on numerous subjects. Having an openly gay son, who had sought surrogacy to produce two children was not something they wished to discuss or mention when in mixed company. "It's not something we choose to discuss, Grant." My mother would say. Or when introducing my husband, my mother would always refer to him as my Friend' or just as Jackson, a friend of the family'. To refer to him as my partner, or heaven forbid, my husband, was never going to happen. Despite my best efforts, should I wish to have a relationship with my parents, my sexuality was never to be spoken about, discussed and displays of affection barred. I grew up in an era of AIDS. I came out during the height of endemic and my mother's first words were, if you catch AIDS don't bother coming home. My fathers first words were, `I hope you didn't use my razor'. Such was the stigma in those early days, it led to a lifetime of shame directed towards me, from those I hoped would protect me the most. Now I was challenged with the biggest task of my life. The truth.