A woman inherited a small share of the family camp from her late father’s portion and declined to sign it away when her aunts and uncles held a meeting about it without inviting her. Two years of disputes followed. Even her own mother told her she was wrong, but she would back down

At this point, although I would say I’m pretty fascinated with human nature, I stopped trying to understand family logic. Here, there’s a particular brand of family logic that treats legal ownership as a technicality and feelings as the actual binding document. Under this system, the fact that a grandmother chose to include someone in her estate is less relevant than what the rest of the family had already decided over a meeting they scheduled without telling that person. The paperwork is just a formality. The real agreement happened without you, and your job is to show up and sign.