When Luke complained about his inheritance to his grandmother, Elizabeth, she wrote him off her will and left him with a dusty old chest. He stored it in the attic for years until his curious daughter, Meredith, found it while snooping around. Luke finally opened it and couldn’t believe what was inside.
When Elizabeth turned 80 years old, she decided to draft a will and divide her assets among her three grandsons: Tom, Aidan, and Luke. Then she invited them over for tea at her house in Milford, Connecticut, and told them what they were each getting. Elizabeth thought that the eldest, Tom, should get her oceanfront penthouse in Miami, worth millions of dollars.
The middle grandson, Aidan, would inherit her current house in Milford, which was worth around the same as the Miami property. “Finally, Luke will get the money in all my accounts,” Elizabeth revealed as she finished her tea. Tom and Aiden were satisfied with her decision, but Luke was upset.
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“Grandma! I can’t believe you’re leaving the best for my brothers! That’s not fair! Everyone knows you don’t have that much money in your accounts!” Luke bellowed. Elizabeth frowned at Luke, and his brothers couldn’t believe he would burst out like that.
“Luke, sit down! You can’t yell at Grandma like that. You sound really entitled right now, you know? She doesn’t have to give you anything,” Tom growled.
“Of course! You’re both happy because you’re getting millions of dollars worth of property. But I’ll be lucky to get a few thousand dollars,” Luke replied to his big brother. Aidan also told him he was acting like a brat, so he stormed out of their meeting.
The older brothers thanked their grandmother for her generosity, and they promised to speak to Luke to keep the peace between them. After all, they didn’t have any other family left. Their mother, Elizabeth’s daughter, died in a boating accident with her husband when Luke turned 18. The three of them had already inherited a ton of money from their parents.
But despite Tom and Aidan’s assurances, Elizabeth got to thinking. She talked to her lawyers again and decided that Luke needed to learn a huge lesson. When she died two years later, the brothers gathered for the will reading. In the end, Tom and Aiden received exactly what Elizabeth had promised them.
But Luke did not get her accounts. “Elizabeth changed her will after we completed the first draft. Luke, she loved you more than anyone… So you will be receiving this antique chest, which she treasured,” her lawyer explained. This caused Luke to snap and yell at everyone in the room. Tom tried to calm him down, but Aidan didn’t want to put up with his brother’s outbursts again.
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“Luke, this is probably her punishment for how you yelled at her years ago. Our grandmother is gone! She was the only relative we had left! You are so ungrateful and entitled! Take the chest and think about how entitled and horrible you sound right now!” Aidan screamed at his brother. Luke stopped, looked at all of them in anger, and left the room.
The chest arrived on Luke’s doorstep a few days later, but he stashed it in his closet right away, without even taking a look inside. Then he cut his brothers off and moved on with his life.
Eventually, he met Lidia, a wonderful woman who didn’t care about money and had a big family. A few years after their wedding, they had a daughter, Meredith. She reminded him of his grandmother.
“I was mad at her about the will, but now, I’m ashamed of my behavior back then. I think being the youngest of three boys made me a jealous loser,” Luke revealed to his wife one night as they both worked to get Meredith to sleep. His wife comforted him and told him everything would be alright because he wasn’t that kind of man anymore.
Years went by, and Meredith was the light of his life. She was funny and loved reading about mysteries. Maybe that’s why she adored playing in the attic and snooping through their old boxes.
One day, while Lidia was out buying groceries, 10-year-old Meredith brought him his grandmother’s chest. “Dad! What’s in here? This box is so mysterious! Does it contain a huge treasure?” she asked enthusiastically.
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Luke had been reading on the couch but looked up to see what his daughter was talking about. “Oh, honey. That’s not a box. It’s a chest. Where did you get that? I haven’t seen it in years,” Luke replied, taking his glasses off and taking the chest.
“It was in the attic! Can I have it?” Meredith insisted.
Luke had no idea how the chest ended in the attic, but he figured it must have happened when they moved into this house after his wedding to Lidia. “Yes, honey. You can have it. It was your grandmother’s chest. She gave it to me years ago. But you know what? I never opened it. You want to do that with me right now?” he asked excitedly.
Meredith cheered, as Luke tried to pull the latch open. It was a bit stuck from years of being unused, but he got it. “Oh my god….” Luke breathed as he got a look at everything inside. His daughter had been right; it contained a considerable amount of treasure. There were several gold bars, and Luke found a certificate, which stated that he was the owner.
“Dad, these are real gold bars, right? Your grandmother gave you these?” Meredith wondered, touching one of the bars. “Why does it say 100 gr.?”
“That means it weighs 100 grams, Meredith,” Luke answered, but he was still dumbfounded. There were 10 gold bars inside the chest. His daughter marveled at them and touched them.
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“Look, Dad! There’s a letter in here!” she exclaimed and gave it to Luke. But it was an envelope from Milford Bank, and there was a key inside. “What does the key open?”
“Well, this must be a key to a safety deposit box at the bank,” Luke responded.
When Lidia got home from the store, he explained everything. She encouraged him to go to the bank and ask around. The bank manager, Mr. Paxton, was delighted when he saw the key and Luke’s I.D.
“Oh! You must be Elizabeth’s grandson! I thought you would never come to visit us,” he said eagerly and asked him to follow while he continued speaking. “Your grandmother was our bank’s best customer. I arranged this safety deposit box years ago. I’m glad you’re here.”
He opened it and discovered at least 50 more gold bars inside, but these weighed one kilogram each. “Your grandmother didn’t trust the digital age. She preferred to keep her money on material things. There are also a few diamonds and precious gemstones here. Do you need to withdraw anything today?” the manager asked with a smile.
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“No, not today. I just wanted to check,” Luke replied breathlessly. He returned home and told Lidia everything. That night, he called both of his brothers and apologized for everything. He told them what their grandma had done, and they laughed.
“I knew Grandma wanted to divide everything equally! But your attitude made her hide it from you! This is awesome,” Aiden laughed through the phone. In the end, Luke laughed too because his big brother was right.
Soon, he patched things up with his brothers and was happy to give his family anything they wanted. But Luke would never forget how he acted back then and regretted it forever.
What can we learn from this story?
- Don’t act like an entitled brat. You are not entitled to anyone’s money, even if your relatives are wealthy. Luke learned a harsh lesson.
- Always open mystery chests. Never leave stuff unopened. You might be missing out on millions.
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