A $20,000 inheritance
How I deployed a five-figure windfall.
I’m named after two men.
My first name is in honor of Edward Grady. Most people don’t know Edward is my legal first name. That was intentional from a young age.
I share several qualities with Grady, the most notable being my creativity and typically reserved personality and soft-spokenness in public settings. But I wanted nothing to do with his name. It sounded too corny to me as a child, and the last thing I ever wanted was to go through my life being called Edward.
I decided early to go by the first of my two middle names, the name by which you know me. It comes from Dr. Darnell Williams. He was my godfather and, like Grady, a lifelong friend to my mother. Williams, however, was my mom’s best friend. He also was godfather to my three brothers.
Doc, as we affectionately called him, passed on Sept. 28, 2021 due to heart failure. His death left a huge hole in our family, but his legacy lives on.
Doc made his living as a longtime educator. He worked as a college professor of English. He served as the dean of education at Langston University. He also developed a successful international studies program among his numerous other achievements.
Many of my earliest and fondest memories include Doc’s presence. I learned to love the English language because of Doc and might not have become a professional writer without his towering influence.
He administered impromptu spelling bees to me and other children in our family’s circle. When we misspoke, he staunchly corrected our grammar. He taught me how to spell Mississippi the southern way. All these years later, I still remember the jingle.
“M-I-Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter-I-Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter-I-Humpback, Humpback-I.”
For birthdays and graduations, Doc displayed his love and generosity through cards stuffed with cash. And he made sure everyone knew how much money he gave. It felt taboo, and I couldn’t figure it out.
Darnell was the antithesis of Edward. Darnell had an outsized personality. He was flamboyant, often the loudest in the room. He craved being the center of attention. As a child, I didn’t understand his conduct. As a man, I reflect on his confidence with adoration. Doc always stayed true to himself.
Thirteen months after Doc’s death, I received an unexpected inheritance. My mother was a co-owner on his savings account, thus in control of the approximately $180,000 he left. After doling out Doc’s money according to his desires and paying necessary expenses, about $105,000 remained.
My mother gave $20,000 each to her four children.
“I believed that he would have wanted that,” my mother, Alberta Mayberry, shared with me last week. “He loved all of you so much, and I think that would have been something that he would have been as happy about as giving $30,000 to Philander Smith University [his former employer].”
I had never received such an inheritance. My three brothers and I received $5,000 each when our maternal grandfather passed in 2013. When you come from a large family in which no one is wealthy, you don’t even think about an inheritance. And I was a bit apprehensive about being given such a large sum of money. I felt internal pressure to make the most of the money, while also experiencing strange feelings of guilt for being gifted anything at all.
In parts of the Black community, a toxic belief exists that if you come from money you’re not like the rest. Trust-fund babies are rare among us, and they can be judged more harshly than in other cultures as spoiled individuals who don’t understand the struggle.
Statistics didn’t help ease my angst, but they did offer hope for my family’s long-term prospects. A recent study by Ramsey Solutions found that 79% of millionaires in the United States didn’t receive any inheritance from their parents or other family members. According to the survey, eight out of 10 millionaires come from families at or below middle-income level.
If they can do it without assistance, I certainly can get there with some help.
To avoid having to report the money to the IRS on a gift tax return, my mother divided the payment. She wired lumped sums of $5,000 from October through January. Her savvy decision limited our gifts to $15,000 each in 2022, just under the threshold.
My first lump sum arrived on Oct. 13, 2022, two months after incurring the major vehicle repair bill that started me down the path of financial literacy. I immediately put $2,500 toward my credit card, which bailed me out from carrying a supersized balance and paying additional interest fees.
I invested most of the remaining $17,500 into the stock market. It was the best use of the money I knew, a decision that ensured my inheritance of Doc’s money would not be in vain. I had jumped into stocks with funds from my wages only 17 days earlier. But those first three weeks exposed me to life-changing information and the power of investing.
My early investments have now compounded and collected dividends for the better part of the past year and have helped get my investing journey off to a tremendous start. I’ve turned an unexpected inheritance into passive income.
I’m forever grateful to Doc and thankful to my mother. Their benevolence is a reminder that my pursuit of generational wealth is not starting with me but rather building on the backs of those who’ve come before me.
It was my grandmother who long ago inspired my mother to bless people when she could rather than when she saw fit. My mom’s mother hated the idea of waiting until December to give someone something they really needed in July.
My mom could have held onto Doc’s remaining funds and added the money to her will for us to receive upon her death. I’m glad she reversed course. It doesn’t make me spoiled or signify in any way that I don’t understand the struggle. What it says is our family is highly favored.
I haven’t talked to my brothers about what they’ve done with their inheritance. It’s not my business. But I wish we each would have pooled together $5,000 and launched a cash-flowing business. It would have been group economics at its finest.
And I know we would have made Doc proud.
"Well Sir and Sir Well!! "
Darnell Williams