What a start to 2012 Everyone needs a will

Hello all,

Wow what a start to 2012. This year already has brought on some very trying and challenges.
I have been called away and had to fly across country to be with family, my Father in law. He took a bad turn. I spent 5 weeks there with him, and was able to get him well enough to travel, with Doctors ok. I was able to move his household, and drive across country with him. We moved him in with us. He needed 24/7 care. He could not be left alone. We were just getting him settled and we even had an outing to the zoo. The next week he took another bad turn for the worse in a very short amount of time. Family was called and we brought him home, in a new bigger place with Hospice care. I am sad to say that he did pass away, he was comfortable, and he was in no pain. He passed away with his family at his side, at home. Which is what he wanted.

The Last seven months has been hard for my family, dealing with health issues of older family members, across county makes it even more difficult. Phone calls daily do not do it. Having to put your life on hold to be there in person to care for and do what ever you can to help family is not easy. We all can do it! I am happy to say that I was able to do what ever I needed to for family. Most people hear that he was my father in law and you care for him like he is your father. He was my father for over twenty years. Just because I married in to the family he was still my father. Family is family! Most people even think of some of their close friends as family and will do anything for them. That is the same thing.

So here is what I want to stress to EVERYONE! You have to have a will. You have to have a health care plan for you! You should all have a health care power of attorney written up!
You also should have all paperwork, for life insurance, loans, and creditors all in one place. You need to have all businesses that you do business with and your account numbers.

You also should have all passwords, for email, banking, anything you do online in a place where family can have access to it, if something was to happen to you. Another thing is to have a few signed checks put away, especially if there is no one else on the bank account.

Another thing that everyone needs to have in a file, and a hard copy is birth certificate, not only of yourself, but your spouse, and children even grown children! Death certificates of spouse, parents, children. You also need to have social security cards, military paper work, marriage certificates, divorce papers. The basic list goes on!

I personally have all paperwork for my immediate family. When my father in law came to be with us, he did not have everything. I have been going through all his paperwork, still missing important things. I do assume he may of shred some of the paper work we needed before he moved. He was a shredding machine. We had talked about him writing a will 3 days before he went into the Hospital. We did not have a chance to get it done. Even when you do not have an "estate" you still need a will. If he had a will and in the will stated that he wanted his 3 solid gold teeth removed before cremation, it could of been done. As it was not he had to be created with his teeth. Even though he had told everyone that is what he wanted done. Also if he had stated in a will that he wanted to be cremated and his other wishes it would of been easier than having to get a hold of all the children all out of state and having them all sign paperwork so he could be cremated, as he wanted.

I guess bottom line is EVERYONE needs a will! Even if you do not own a dang thing in this world you need a will. Just telling people what you want is not good enough anymore. There are so many rules, and laws that are in place to protect people, just the family making choices and decisions is not how it is anymore.

No one wants to think about death. No one wants to die. But the fact is we all will die some time. But what we need to do is make things easier for our families to have things in order! make a plan, have things done and in a safe place. Update wills, and such as needed.

We are doing well and going on with life. We have a few more lose ends to tie up on my father in law. All this comes with time and finding the right paperwork, phone calls, emails and money.