🤠 How A Will Keeps Your Good Memory Alive

 Day 53:  When There is a Will There is a Way

by Edward Smith

27 Aug 2020

Will Yourself to Get a Will

If you read my last article entitled 🤠  How Not Having a Will is Scary and Leads to Civil War, you'll have read about how my grandma didn't have a will, and how that small misstep, was so big, it caused my family to turn against one another.   

I've seen both sides.  I've seen what happens when you don't have a will.  I've also seen what happens when you do have a will.   

In this article I talk about my Grandpa.  He had a will, his story ended wonderfully.   It's the version that I want to repeat and emulate.  The people you leave behind have enough to worry about, when you pass.  The will helps instruct them.  It tells them what to do, and how to do it.   Having a will is a no brainer.  Get a will.

My Grandfather Had a Will

After my grandmother passed away, I didn't see a funeral again until I was in high school.   This time it was my grandfather in Germany.   

Talk about a different experience.

I don't live in Germany.   The funeral itself required a trip overseas, on a plane, to a place I wasn't familiar with at all.   Luckily for me and my mom, my grandfather had taken care of the whole thing.  My mother's sister received a packet with all of the instructions, and locations for every important document that the family needed to find.   

The packet included instructions for my grandfather's personal effects.  It included accounts, and instructions for who got what.  My aunt didn't have to make any decisions along the way.  She just had to honor her dad, by making sure my grandfather's wishes were followed.   

This Made The Whole Thing Way Easier

By laying the whole thing out.  My aunt was able to show up to her father's house.   She was able to call up an estate planner.  Important objects were handed to their respective owners, and the rest of the personal effects were able to be sold at an estate sale.  

Since there were no strings attached, the estate sale was able to happen quickly.  My grandfather's house was sold right after that, and after that the proceeds from the sale, got into the appropriate hands.   

No invited guests could lay claim to anything.   It was already gone, and the affairs were settled.   My grandfather even got to specify gifts that people received.  

One of them was to pay for my plane trip to show up to his funeral, and then to travel with my aunt and uncle visiting all of his favorite spots in Europe.  I got to eat food in one of his secret hidden restaurants, where he had eaten food himself, and I got to walk in the footsteps of my grandfather learning about him along the way from his daughter.  

Since my mom was also part of this plan, she was there with me, and we got to experience my grandfather together.   Talk about an awesome way to remember your loved one and to learn about them in a meaningful way.  

I also got to follow his ashes to his final resting place, and got to see the gravestone where him and his wife were buried.   

None of that would have happened, if things were left to happen on their own.   I wasn't even in the country to lay claim to anything.   

Because the will protected everyone, I got to see everything that he wanted me to see.   His plan happened.  It was his gift.   Wills can be one of the greatest gifts you ever give to someone.   

Conclusion

My wife and I are both completing our wills this week.   We should have done it before now, but we kept making excuses, and it took longer then we planned.  That being said, the process is actually super easy.  

It probably depends on your life situation, and how complicated you want things to be, but we're pretty easy going people, and we know what we're trying to do, and for whom, so so far, it hasn't really been a big deal.   

Most people don't have a complicated life.  Most people can complete a will in about twenty minutes.  All you need is to go online, find an online will service provider and then fill out the information and have it signed in front of two witnesses and a notary public.   

You don't even have to make this your only version.   As things change, change with it, update your will, and keep the thing current.   

I'd also suggest building a legacy box on the side.   You can leave really detailed instructions for anything that the will doesn't cover.   Between those two things, your family can walk in, read it and get everything done.   Make your passing easy.   It's the right thing to do, and your family will thank you forever.