As I mentioned in an earlier post, my father-in-law, Roger, recently passed away.

Roger was a helluva guy. Decorated Vietnam vet (USMC, 3 tours), a career cop, loving father, doting grandfather, and the best father-in-law a guy could ask for. He was ALWAYS there when we needed him.

His death came as a shock to us. He was sixty, and as far as we knew, healthy.

Roger left no will, no life insurance, no instructions for a funeral. No beneficiary was listed on any of his bank accounts. Many of his possessions are unaccounted for (presumably in a safe deposit box--we found an unmarked key, but we have no idea where it is or what number.) My wife is his only child, and he was, as he liked to say, "happily divorced for thirteen years" at the time of his death. My wife had to decide EVERYTHING. This made the already incredibly difficult task of coping with his loss that much worse.

I urge everyone here, if they haven't already done so, to prepare for their own death. You should have a will. And a living will. And someone needs to know where they are. Your loved ones should know what you would like done with your remains, and what sort of funeral service you would like. You should have AT LEAST enough life insurance to pay for your funeral and burial/cremation/whatever expenses. If you store stuff (especially valuables or heirlooms) in a place other than your home, SOMEONE should know where. You should have beneficiaries listed at your bank, and at your place of business. If you have children, designate (legally) a guardian for them in the event that you and your spouse die.

I cannot stress how important this stuff is, folks. Having all of this in order will save your loved ones a lot of grief during a time when they will already have more than they can handle.

Take care,

Andy

PS:
Some of you have PMed me with your condolences-- thank you. I'm sorry I wasn't able to respond sooner.

Andy: Sorry for your loss. I had a girlfriend whose family went through the same thing when her grandmother passed away. It took some time to locate all of the important papers as ther were in a household safe that no one knew about. It took her father and I some time and effort to bring it into the yard and break into it since the key couldn't be found. The whole exercise of the family searching the house and having to break into things definitely prolonged the grieving.

Conversely, when my grandfather passed away we had an easier time of it. This was because he had hired an estate planner who handled everything when the time came. Because of his detachment it was easier for him to address things in a way that had been previously agreed to with the family. Also, as executor of the estate he was able to handle issues with the bank and insurance company. Anyone who has even modest assets should consider this approach for the sake of their families.

Chris

ade. sorry to hear about your loss. my fater died in 99, appart from a little high colesterol, he was in ok shape. he too died intestate(no will) so we had a nightmare of a time getting it all sorted out. had to go to a small court to work out who were the official benificeries. hope that its all working out well now. steve

I have served (mainly throgh attrition) as an Executor. When you decide whom to trust, make sure that, they and the alternate(s) are, at a minimum, your contemporaries in age-and ideally, younger than you. Consider getting a savings
bond that the Executor(s) can cash and use for inevitable
expenses. It's also more convenient if your Executor's
signatures are on safe deposit box register cards.

If there isn't a Wil, trust me-everyone, and every
conceivable government agency-will have their hand out.
This is especially true if you decide to go the cheap route-like,
say, not retaining an Attorney.

Another reason for Wills and burial instructions/policies:
Morticians love elaborate funerals. Especially when out-of-state relatives do not attend.

We all have stuff we value. If you have a collection or just one piece, make sure that someone knows what the value
is and where to go to get a good price.

My Great-Aunt was a collector of olde (spelling intentional) furniture and clocks. My Uncle retired from the Westclox Corp. They had clocks from the 1800's. Their collection-along with suites of real hand made furniture-Chippendale Armoires and the like-was sold for pennies on the dollar, because no one recognized it's value-except the buyers, that is.

One other thing you might think about: there are 'empty books'
available that you can fill wih details about your life. Modest?
Self-effacing? Sure. But it might be a treasured heirloom
for your descendants if you should have an early demise.
I never knew either of my Grandfathers and only one of my
Grandmothers. I wish I had.

Thanks to all for their kind wishes. They are appreciated.

As Roger's only heir, my wife hasn't had any real problems regarding Roger's things. Roger's brothers bent over backwards to help us, and no one contested anything my wife chose to do, or to keep.

The problems with his bank accounts are being sorted out without (so far) having to resort to a lawyer, and hopefully, in a month or so, we'll not only be able to make up for the funeral, and travel expenses, but be able to pay of a few other bills and pad the children's college funds. Though this is going well so far, it would have been a non-issue had there been a will, or had my wife been listed as a beneficiary on the accounts.

The worst problems were trying to figure out how to lay him to rest in a way that both he and the family would have approved of, and the fact that we were not able to find two of his firearms.

Having to plan a service for him was a nightmare for my wife. We knew more about what he didn't want than what he did. Trust me, this is not something you want your family to have to deal with; they will be having a hard enough time without having to haggle with funeral directors, or check with family members on every detail. Let them know what you want, and then make sure they have the means to pay for it. Funeral services are not cheap.

The firearms still bother me. More than anything else, these should be accounted for. I would feel so much better if we knew where they were, even if they had been sold, or given away. As I mentioned before, we did find an umarked safe deposit box key, hopefully we'll eventually get a bill for it and find the guns there.

Take care,

Andy

This is THE one thing that NOBODY likes to talk about ... thinking it will somehow hasten the inevitable. What a lot of people don’t realize is that when you die, YOU are gone, and everyone ELSE has to pick up the pieces and figure out what to do. It may not be what you wanted done, but if you left no guidance, and then you have no one to blame but yourself. And as noted here, if you die without a will, the state gets most of the money, not the people you may have wanted it to go to.

I lost both of my parents last year. they had really planned ahead, had a Living Trust (better than a will, no probate), I was on all of their bank accounts (I am an only child), they had pre-paid their cremation. That is where the "problem" comes in.

Approx ten years ago they went to a local mortuary and pre-paid. What that entails is depositing the cost of the cremation into a special bank account, accessable only by the mortuary. The account builds interest, which my parents had to declare on their taxes every year. By the time they died the account had grown to about twice the current cost of a cremation, making a ton of "free" money for the mortuary, and due to the tax thing making my parents pay much more than they should have. They did this to "make things easier" for me when they were gone, but all it did was increase the details I had to take care of, and wasted their money...

A much better plan is to just have enough money set aside, and accessable by a trusted person, to pay for the funeral/cremation...

My sincere condolences.

It seems strange that, just a few days ago, my father (58 years of age) sat the family down after diner to have a similar conversation - How he wants to be buried, what to do with his possetions etc.

It was uncomfoertable watching my own father "plan his death" (as i saw it), but i now understand how important this is.

Thank you for bringing this topic up. I never realised the importance of it.