I collapsed to my knees during an asthma attack, fighting for air while my younger sister held my inhaler just out of reach. She smirked and said, “Gasp, loser.” My parents stood by and did nothing. Today, in court, when the judge said, “Before we begin, let’s watch a family video,” she started shaking—and then screaming.

And for the first time in my life, their power over me fractured—cleanly, decisively.

The civil proceedings over the following months felt colder than the courtroom trial, but in many ways, they cut deeper. The judge reviewing my grandmother’s estate—my beloved Grandma Evelyn Brooks—requested every journal, every email, every unsigned birthday card that Hannah had painstakingly recovered.

Piece by piece, a portrait emerged: not just of neglect, but of systematic erasure.

Grandma had written dozens of entries wondering why I never called…
entries dated the same days I had left voicemails that were never passed on.

She wrote about sending me gifts that were returned “address unknown,”
even though I’d lived at the same dorm address all four years.

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