Date: Tue, 30 May 2023 13:04:44 +1000
From: Gavin Hurst <gavin_hurst@icloud.com>
Subject: A life less than ordinary - Chapter 1

Where does one start? At the beginning? Mid way through? Or at the
ending? These were the questions that were facing me as I sat in a room
surrounded by people. Trying to get my head around the changes that were
in front of me. You see, I had just inherited a large wealth that was
life changing & I knew that how I lived from week to week would no longer
be an issue.

My husband and I were your typical gay couple. Married for years, raised
kids, worked hard in our jobs and wanted to spend our twilight years
travelling to far and exotic places, although only turned 50, in gay
years, we were ancient. We'd saved. We had good superannuation and we
knew that at the end of the day, once realised, we would make it work.

Coming from a large family, I had several siblings that I was never
really close to, and parents that I could best describe as distant. For
what ever reason, we never clicked, although my love for my mother was
always strong and respectful. But we were never close. Being the youngest
child, I was always different from my siblings, and never thought much
about it growing up. I knew early on in life that I was the "late
edition" to the family, and was singled out as different my whole
upbringing. It was life in Sydney Australia in the 70's and most kids my
age was just going about their thing. I never had reason to question
anything, I always had a good roof over my head, a good education,
friends, activities, what else could I ask for.

One night whilst sitting at home, my phone rang with an unknown number
from overseas displayed. I thought it was the usual scammer trying to
either sell me something, get my bank account details, or God forbid, I
was related to a dead Nigerian prince who had left me a princely sum of
money, and I should wire my bank details ASAP. Instead, it was a German
lady `representing' the estate of woman who had died and through
tracing I was the only heir left in the chain. Yeah yeah I thought being
overly suspicious of such scams, and quickly hanging up to avoid any
scamming. 2 minutes later the phone rang again. The same number and the
same woman. I kept hanging up as over and over and over she was trying to
plead with me to hear her out. Eventually I did and what I was told would
change my life for ever.

Eva Von Garbner was an heiress herself who was born in 1923 and have
lived a privileged life to the only daughter of Germany's biggest
banking & industrialist families, her self having only had one daughter
out of wedlock, and much to her families' shame. Her daughter, in a
repeat of circumstances, had her own bastard son, but, rather than face
the repeated shame, she was exiled to give birth, and put up for adoption
with no word ever mentioned again of his name or whereabouts. That son
was me. I needed proof, but I also needed answers. My head was reeling
from this news. This unknown woman on the end of the phone knew too much
about me, my family, my background to be a phone scam. Where I lived,
where I worked, where I grew up, my school, my family....... There was just
so much she knew, yet to me, she was a stranger. After about an hour she
convinced me to keep this quiet until we could meet face to face in a
week's time, and she would explain and go through everything she knew.

That night my husband and I tried to speculate on what was what and where
it would lead to, and if indeed it were true. At this stage we had no
reason to doubt what I was told, and we had no idea just how large the
inheritance was. All we could do was wait.

Four days later, my German Lady called again to say she had arrived in
Sydney, and was eager to meet up. She suggested the hotel where she was
staying, which was ok by me, as it was fairly open, and not far from
home. We agreed on a time for the next morning, and again she asked if I
had spoken to anyone about our previous call. This alone heightened my
anxiety around the meeting.

The next morning at 10am, I arrived at the hotel and asked for her by
name at reception. They directed me to one of the smaller meeting rooms
just off the lobby. Approaching the door, my ever positive husband
reached out and grabbed my hand giving it a squeeze of encouragement and
whispered the words, "we've got this." It was what I needed as I
knocked on the door and pushed through to what awaited.

It started formally with introductions of the 4 people in the room.
Greta, who had phoned me, Stefan, her principle advisor, William her
legal counsel & Klaus, who represented the family of the deceased.
Formalities over I sat and listened to a tale of woe that changed my
life, my family, my upbringing and everything I knew to be correct. I was
adopted. I was adopted as a young infant to the people I thought were my
parents, and a sibling to those I thought were blood relatives. How it
came about remained a blur as I tried to take in all details and listen
to what I was being told. At that point the smallest details were not
getting through as my brain was cast into over drive to try and take in
every piece of detail spewing forth at 100mph.

Sitting there for an hour as this was unravelling, my desire to get up
and run had overtaken me and raised from the chair and walked out of the
room, the hotel, and onto the streets of Sydney in the sun of a late
Autumn morning. I just walked, alone. Where I was going I couldn't tell
you. My phone in my pocket was ringing constantly and text messages
beeping at an alarming rate. It was about half an hour before I found
myself again in the hotel lobby. Seeking for my husband. To be reassured
that I was ok and not going insane. That what I was being told was true,
and that I wasn't hearing things.

Eventually I walked back in to the room and faced my fears. A coffee
surely helped, although I was thinking a vodka would have been my
preferred choice. Greta, who had now switched to become a warmer version
of herself, empathically checked on my well being, and wanted to get back
in to the main reason she was there. My inheritance. It was revealed that
my `mother' had died in tragic circumstances in the `80s from a drug
overdose and that my maternal grandmother, having no direct heirs had
only recently passed away aged 98, leaving no direct descendants, except
myself, and having an estimated wealth of some $50 billion USD. Again, I
needed Vodka. This was all just too surreal. Her will had stipulated that
her estate be passed on to her next surviving direct descendent, in full,
with me being the only one left. I was stunned, shocked, and could not
even start to imagine what that sort of wealth was like. Yeah, we had a
house in the suburbs, we'd purchased well when we were young, we drove
nice cars, had good paying jobs, but $50B was just not even possible to
imagine. I was waiting for the catch. The gotcha moment. I guess a candid
camera moment where I was set up and told it was a joke. But the more I
waited, the less it seemed to appear. Stipulations were laid out, as a
high net worth individual I would have to have 24/7 security with me at
all times, and we could no longer live in our home, but would need to
move to Germany ideally as that was where the business that I had now
inherited was based, and I had a lot of work ahead of me. But first there
was one thing I needed to do. Confront my family. I needed answers and I
guess closure before I could move forward with my life. The why's, the
when, the what..... My life had been a lie. For 51 years I had believed in
something and blamed myself for my unhappiness and disassociation from my
family, when in fact they'd lied, kept secrets and willingly lead me to
believe that I was making shit up in my head. It was not the case.

By the time I had left the meeting it was early evening and I was spent.
My brain was in overload and I just was exhausted. It was enough to make
you want to scream, but instead, we had to push on with life and start to
seek answers. My parents had retired some 20 years ago to an ideal
coastal town, some 4 hours south of Sydney and were enjoying their life
doing the mundane. They travelled, they gardened, they played golf, they
were pillars of the local community and staunch conservatives in their
political leanings. Dad was a retired Accountant and Mum was a retired
Lawyer. People always sought their advice on numerous subjects. Having an
openly gay son, who had sought surrogacy to produce two children was not
something they wished to discuss or mention when in mixed company.
"It's not something we choose to discuss, Grant." My mother would say.
Or when introducing my husband, my mother would always refer to him as my
`Friend' or just as `Jackson, a friend of the family'. To refer to
him as my partner, or heaven forbid, my husband, was never going to
happen. Despite my best efforts, should I wish to have a relationship
with my parents, my sexuality was never to be spoken about, discussed and
displays of affection barred. I grew up in an era of AIDS. I came out
during the height of endemic and my mother's first words were, if you
catch AIDS don't bother coming home. My fathers first words were, `I
hope you didn't use my razor'. Such was the stigma in those early days,
it led to a lifetime of shame directed towards me, from those I hoped
would protect me the most. Now I was challenged with the biggest task of
my life. The truth.