My mom was left penniless when dad died…

Spirituality

October 7, 2024

back to blog

My mother was left penniless when my father died.

553 dollars and .46 cents were left in their joint bank account 2 months after his passing in Fall of 2021.

38 years of marriage.

3 daughters.

A house too big for the both of them.

Every check my mother earned was placed alongside my father’s in their bank account they had shared decade after decade to fund their life and future together. My mother almost always made more than my father because of her level of education although they both were immigrants from Mexico.

When they got married they had agreed that there was no need for separate accounts because there was trust between them… or so they thought.

Here’s the main lesson witnessing this experience taught me…

Promises create hope.

Keeping that promise and making good on it creates TRUST.

It’s no different for women in business.

This share, as much as it is about entrepreneurship, is first and foremost a spiritual one.

I have the unwavering belief that building a business is a spiritual process.

That being said, watching my mother experience the surprise that her husband of almost 40 years did not financially protect our family or consider the ramifications of their joint choices on the family as a whole crushed my spirit in so many ways.

When my father passed his total medical bills were about $3 Million. His medical insurance and the cancer research center together paid for most of the cost, but not all of it. Two months after his death my mother received an invoice for $100k, on top of a mortgage, house bills, and cost of living expenses. Only to discover that anything that both of them had saved for the later part of their life was left to my sibling, not his widowed wife.

No trust in place. No communication. No reasonable answer to what decisions had been made and why.

This experience brought to light the confirmation that my family of origin was highly dysfunctional, emotionally unhealthy, and financially illiterate.

It was an extra hard truth to look at how much unlearning I needed to do.

After reflecting on the situation with my mother, with tears and heart in hand, I had to ask the deeper question:

How did we get here?

My parents knew how to make money.

My father somewhat knew how to keep money and the challenge was that neither of them knew how to multiply money.

The reality of the situation was that the foundational principles of money were never taught to me by my family of origin and it showed in my business, my relationships, and my inability to take care of myself financially after my father’s death.

My business at its peak was making a month what I made in a year as a W2 working 2 jobs and putting in 80 hours a week.

And yet I couldn’t understand why money was not staying or multiplying.

It would leave just as quick as it came.

I received the same message over and over again from source.

I needed to learn how to become a good steward of money so that I would know what to do with what was coming in harvest time.

I’ve always known in the depth of my being that money in my hands is good for the world.

I am a light that helps bring more light to humanity.

Night after night I cried myself to sleep when my business and personal bank accounts hit single digits.

Source was testing me!

Would I still have the same conviction of my purpose and mission even when the math wasn’t mathing in the bank?

My soul cried out for my inner child to heal from the money wounds that had been cemented since childhood watching my family struggle with putting food on the table and making ends meet.

Understanding that money is energetic and most importantly a spiritually based resource to fuel my work as a steward of change was key in calling in the help I needed to understand and manage money.

Previous to having MTCS help me with the financial management of my businesses I hired various individuals such as CPAs, bookkeepers, financial strategists, and wealth managers.

Among all of these “money professionals” only MTCS delivered upon promise.

MTCS taught me the foundational understanding and importance of understanding money not only as a woman but also as a business owner who is responsible for keeping my books clean, understanding how to read and analyze financial reports, and how to make money multiple.

They taught me how to fish not just feed me a fish.

I am in gratitude for having the experience of having a provider make good on their promise and creating a trusting business relationship that has helped me repair many money wounds I had, including that of my mother’s experience.

MTCS’s next class for business owners on how to stay financially astute is October 17th, 2024.

Hope to see you there!

Join InvestHER: A Financial Q&A for Female Founders

Zeahlot

I see you.

You see me.

I love you.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

share this post:

Business & Pleasure

When you sign up, you'll get:

+ Zeahlot’s personal reflections on entrepreneurship
+ Questions and prompts for your personal and professional development ⁠
+ Priority notice & access to events, offers, and retreats

stay connected with the 

newsletter

authored by zeahlot