If one of your family members passed away, would you follow what the will says as far as inheritance, or would you try to talk your other family members into changing the rules on who gets what?

In this story, a woman shares how close she was to her aunt before her aunt passed away. Now that she and her cousins are splitting up the inheritance, there are differing opinions on how to proceed when it comes to the aunt’s jewelry.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for not sharing my aunt’s jewelry with my cousin’s kids?

My (30sF) aunt (60sF) recently died, less than a year after being diagnosed with stage 4 cancer.

She never married, never had kids, and I’m one of 6 nieces/nephews.

Both my sister and female cousin (N) are married with kids, my male cousin (C, 40M) is married with two daughters, and neither of my younger brothers is married (they’re largely irrelevant to this story).

I’m single and have no intention of having my own kids.

She spent a lot of time with her aunt at the end of her life.

Background: My aunt was a doctor and went into palliative care when she was diagnosed. She wanted to enjoy the time she had left, mostly with travel.

I was close to graduating from surgery residency when she was diagnosed; she asked if I would be willing to be her private physician after graduation–accompanying her on her travels, prescribing her pain meds, etc.

She paid me a little bit more than I had been making as a resident, paid for my travel (first/business class flights, nice hotels, etc), contributed toward my student loans, and put me on the deed to her house (I moved in with her).

I also moonlighted/did locums when we weren’t traveling and after she got too sick to travel so I could keep up my surgery skills. Long story shorter, even with the time I wasn’t making a full surgeon’s salary, I still benefited financially from the agreement.

So far it sounds like splitting up the aunt’s belongings was pretty easy.

My aunt had been a doctor in the foreign service and had accumulated a lot of stuff (Middle Eastern carpets, furniture, silk and cashmere scarfs, art, jewelry, etc) in her career.

Everything was open to all her nieces and nephews to split as we see fit, except the jewelry which was left specifically to her nieces.

There was surprisingly little drama splitting any of it; we even had everything appraised so we were all in agreement on the value of what we were getting.

My sister, N, and I all have different enough tastes in jewelry that we easily agreed on how to split the nice stuff and most of the costume jewelry was set aside for my niece and N’s daughter for when they’re a little older (they’re both under 4).

But there’s always that one person who doesn’t want to abide by what the will says.

Here’s where C comes in: he said that his daughters deserve to have some of my aunt’s jewelry as well.

My sister and N said they’re okay with splitting the costume jewelry to include his daughters.

But he said that they deserve some of the nice stuff as well.

My niece will probably get my sister’s jewels someday and possibly mine and N’s daughter will probably inherit what N got, so C says it’s not fair that my niece and N’s daughter will get more than his daughters.

But that’s not the only reason he thinks she should share the jewelry.

C also says since I got the house, the furniture in the house that no one else wanted, got to travel with my aunt, and she paid off a large portion of my student loans, that I should share the wealth.

My siblings are staying out of it and N says it’s ultimately my choice, but that what C says isn’t wrong.

AITA for holding to my aunt’s will? Is this a hill worth dying on? I have a great relationship with my cousins and siblings and don’t want this to sour that.

It’s really up to her. She doesn’t have to share just because he wants her to.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Here’s a vote for respecting the aunt’s wishes.

This person thinks the cousin is the one in the wrong.

The aunt could’ve easily changed her will if she had wanted to.

Everyone agrees that she should keep the jewelry.

They should honor the will.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.