When a letter from my father with the subject “Property information“popped into my inbox, I cringed.
My parents talked openly about their estate planning for a long time – perhaps partly because when I was 20, my younger brother died unexpectedly, and I became their only surviving child. When I was in my 30s and starting my own family, my parents even invited me to a planning meeting with their estate attorney.
Unfortunately, I only needed it a few months later when my father died 10 days after birth. diagnosed with cancer.
My father chose to inherit along with his brothers and sisters
To be honest, my father takes this pragmatic approach. His parents, my grandparents, once invited their adult children to choose which pieces of art they would like when my grandparents died. This may be a morbid turn in an art exhibition, but my grandparents were firm believers in allowing their children to participate in choosing your inheritance would make future life a little smoother.
The author would like to thank her father for sending her the inheritance document before his death. With permission of the author
So, in 2019, when my father sent me an email titled “Real Estate Information,” I didn’t welcome the email with open arms, but it wasn’t entirely unexpected either. My father was 74 years old at the time and seemed healthy, and since his parents lived to be 89 and 94, I decided to tuck this information away until some vague future day when I would need it. Which is what I ultimately needed.
My dad died on Father's Day
In a funny twist of fate, the day after my father died was Father's Day. Instead of celebrating him and my husband over brunch, I was 3,000 miles away from my husband and children, living out of a suitcase, reliving the brutal physicality of grief, the feeling of something being ripped from my chest.
While my world seemed to stand still, bureaucracy slows down for no one. My mother and I had to tell people that my father had died. We needed to choose a morgue and contact my parents' lawyer and financial consultant. We needed to order death certificates to bring or send to banks, life insurance companies and utility companies.
Those days were a haze of shocks, decisions and challenges. Although Dad's folder did nothing to ease the feeling in my chest, I often thought about how much worse it would be if we had to go on an elaborate hunt for important documents and information.
I would like to thank my father
The file my father sent me contained all the information we would need in settling his estate, including:
- My parents' social security numbers
- List of all bank accounts
- The physical location of important documents such as life insurance policies, home deeds, and other files.
- Passwords
- Information about auto, home, health and long-term care insurance
- Pension information
- Financial Advisor Information
- Real Estate Lawyer Information
- Information about advance care directives
More than six years have passed since my father died. As I review this probate document, I am amazed at how much thought he put into its creation. I can imagine him sitting on his kitchen island, fiddling with his laptop and trying to make sure he included all the information we might need. He thought of everything – even provided the location of a document with biographical details that we could use in writing his obituary.
Thinking about one's own death in such detail could not be pleasant. But he did it anyway. I think about the discomfort I felt when my parents were open about their inheritance plans, and now I look at it differently. Talking about death is no fun, but it's even less fun when someone dies and the remaining people have to figure it all out while grieving.
I began to see my father's work for what it was – a continuation of the unfailing love he had given me all my life. The last way, even after he's gone, is to become my father.
