This is not about politics; this has no links; this is about love and death.
F-ck you if you don't have a will--I don't care who you are.
I want to be clear, f--- you! Especially if you are a parent, auntie, son, wife, uncle, or human with nothing but the clothes on your back.
Fact to consider: You will die. You will die sooner or later, and sooner without a will makes the lives of any one left behind suck with noise and confusion.
Twenty years ago, after a bitter, ugly divorce in which my 9 and 11 year old nephews chose to live with their Dad (so he got the house and support),my gentle and kind younger brother went out for his nightly jog and was hit by a car driven by a teenage boy going too fast on a country lane. No will. He was 35 and he was a fool. He had not changed the beneficiary on insurance, 401K, no executor named—the ex-bitch took control “in the interest of the boys.” She forced the sale of the house the boys had grown up in, she controlled the money from SSI and a small trust. She moved the boys to a different school district against advice of school counselors. She made my mother, who had been the boys’ primary caretaker since birth and bus stop since they were in school, sue for visitation.
Last March, after a month in an excellent state of the art hospital with an unknown infection, after two weeks in an induced coma and a desperate guessing game by her doctors (many wonderful people tried their best), my nephews (21 and 23) were brave enough to take my beloved youngest sister, one of my closest friends, off of the feeding tube and ventilator, so she could die as she had told us many times she would want (she did not have a living will). She was 47. She was cremated (also known to us as her choice), but only because all of her next-of-kin (her boys) agreed. That's a law here in TN--that all NOK have to agree on cremation or no go-- because, once again, she left No will or instructions. She had left her life insurance money to me, something she had set up when the boys were underage, and all of her retirement, 401k, etc, was still to go to her asshole ex. He was good enough to sign away all rights to it for the boys, but that could have been a court fight. Creditors came after my mother and her sons. Everything was chaos for a while.
And on this Memorial Day, my Viet Nam Vet, angry older brother shuffled off his mortal coil; he was 66. For years he said bitter, hateful things about feminists, liberals, democrats, college professors (all=me), and insulted my friends—gay straight black Hispanic, Chinese, French, democrat. As a deathbed promise to my baby sister, I helped with paperwork and gritted my teeth till he got everything in to the VA. I dutifully drove him to all the testing, sat in on all consults with Drs, got him to 6 months of chemo and radiation in Nashville (264 miles RT) for a tumor on his vocal cords; I talked him through quitting smoking, getting a feeding port, and several quick trips to the ER for panic attacks that caused shortness of breath; I pep talked him into eating real food, though it didn’t “taste like food.” We grew closer on this journey and talked about him making a will on our last trip home from the VA. His oldest had just had his first grandchild, and he was eager to go to Ohio to see her. The tumor was gone! His blood work was improving; His oncologist was encouraging, but he was down to 132 lbs, struggling with breathing, trouble sleeping, and so angry (according to his son) that he went out and bought two packs of smokes and went through them as fast as he could. My mother found him late that day, dead of a massive coronary. I don’t know if the smoking did it, his heart was stressed by so much weight loss, but no need for an autopsy—I could see on his face that it was swift and shocking. I do know this about his death though: No will.
And I’m at the funeral home again, but this time, to be cremated as he wished, I need to get signed waivers from all three of his children, two of whom live in Ohio and are estranged from him and are not coming down to the funeral. I cannot pay the funeral expenses until the court appoints an executor. He told my mother that if he died he would like for my husband and me to have his old Ford Truck—an ’85 Laredo that he had just put a newer engine in—for our small farm. We could use it, but there is much paper work to be done. I cannot settle any details that need settling. And I am grieving at the same time.
I was for 35 years one of five. Then I was one of four for 20 years, and it always felt like a missing finger on a hand. In one year, I’m now one of two, and honestly, I’m crippled with loss. But someone still has to deal with everything.
My other sister lives in Arizona, and so for the first time I am alone as my mother’s “keeper.” My mother is 86. She lived in Ohio, next door to my brother, on land she and my father had given to him; he had watched out for her years after my father died, and she had all but raised his boys. I moved to TN to be closer to my family in 2000; all the nephews kept an eye on her as they grew up—moving in and out of her old farmhouse--home to them. Mom had a stroke in 2004 so my sister and brother and I moved her closer to us here in TN, on the mountain where she was born; for a while, she lived next door to my sister in a little house we fixed up for her; then when my sister divorced, she and my Mom bought a house to live in together in 2007 (thankfully the house itself is in my mother’s name—so no probate on the house), and my brother put a trailer at the back of the property in 2008 (and at my sister’s insistence, put that in my mother’s name too)—so she owns both structures and the property. All of this is vital for you to know because, WITHOUT A WILL, this property could have been a mess of claims and counterclaims.
My remaining sister and I have no children, but we both have wills; the three who died all had children and no wills. My nephews all have wills. My mother has a will, has made all of her funeral arrangements, and left explicit instructions for music, photos, and burial. My 92-year-old mother-in-law has a will and has made specific arrangements for “after.”
Making a will means you care about the people you are leaving—not whatever you are leaving them. You care enough about them to make sure the moment of loss and lamentation is NOT filled with decisions about money and arrangements, and thinking. It’s hard enough to deal with grief, to eat, to shower, to walk, and do all the other things you have to do without breaking down all the time.
Please, just make a will. It’s not “bad luck” to make a will, it’s just good sense.