When my time comes, everything is here,” he said. Long before his death, my father-in-law sat us down and opened his safe, carefully walking us through the important documents inside. Legal papers were signed. The funeral was prepaid. He had done what responsible people do. He had prepared us.
He had done everything right so we would avoid probate. When he passed, I felt calm, believing the hardest part would be missing him.
I never realized how unprepared I was until I was living it — grieving, exhausted and navigating details I never imagined would fall to me, blindsided by mundane things no one thinks of. The first sign: a missing checkbook needed to pay bills, followed by a key ring heavy with unlabeled keys. We became landlords overnight without knowing tenants’ names or rent amounts. Then there were crucial phone numbers we didn’t have, passwords we didn’t know and even a request for their marriage certificate.
Six months later, finding care for my mother-in-law brought another surge of decisions layered over grief. Then came their home and 60 years of memories, paperwork and possessions to sort.
Grief did not arrive gently. It competed with deadlines, phone calls and responsibilities. I would solve one problem only to face another. For two years, I lived more than a hundred “I wish I had known” moments that weighed me down from sunup to sundown. Cancel a phone too soon and verification codes disappear. A landline in one name only can stall everything.
My in-laws were not careless. How could they prepare us for what they didn’t know? I gained knowledge only because I was forced to. When my mother-in-law passed two years later, I finally understood what needed to be done, which made it easier to handle.
How many families believe they are prepared — until they are standing where I stood?
Have the important, much-needed conversations now. Label the keys. Share the passwords. Clarify the small things down to the detail.
This important preparation is much more than paperwork. It is how we care for the people we love after we are gone.
For more information about WAIT—Don’t Die Yet!, email buckwun@aol.com, call 808-454-7871 or visit annettekam.com.