Are your affairs in order?

[hmrambling]

I attended a funeral today. One of my church friends had a lung disease and died at the very young age of 30. Last May she married her partner. Days ago when she died, her family stepped up with a life insurance policy in which they were the beneficiaries. Her wife didn't have the money to bury her, so she gave my friend's family the rights to make the funeral and burial arrangements.

The family posted the obituary in my friend's maiden name and didn't acknowledge the wife at all. It's as though the wife didn't exist. Church friends showed up in support of her wife. We all wore white shirts and sat on the wife's side at the funeral home. Our minister didn't speak, and he was not on the program.

The family took every opportunity to exclude her wife from the service.

However..... the minister who spoke at the service acknowledged the division in the funeral home and said that my friend who was deceased brought everyone together. Even though folks in the room had very different positions, the door is now open for us to interact. It was a very good message. A message that I suspect that the family was not prepared to hear. He went on to acknowledge my friend's wife, and say that we (the folks on the wife's side of the room) knew her as her married name... because she is, in fact, legally married.

I was surprised that the minister took the chance and acknowledged the divided funeral service, and advised us that it is now incumbent upon us to keep the door open... to be open for interaction even though we don't agree with each other. It was really good to hear, and I think it took a lot of courage to address the issue.

After the service, an announcement was made and her family was invited to our church. Some of her family came to our church, and we were happy to have them. Today was a huge eye opener about how families can be during bereavement, and how we still have a long way to go in so many aspects.

Are your affairs in order? If you die tomorrow, would your family exclude your partner from the services? Do you have the money to leave to your partner so that your final arrangements could be made the way that you would want them to be made?

[MissButterfly]

I'm not in a relationship currently but this is so important... I'm specializing in thanatology (death studies) and doing a research internship for a funeral company here in The Netherlands. It's made me realize how important it is to get your wishes on paper. I've been insured since I was born (don't know how that works in other countries, I think it's very different). Since starting my internship, I've written down my wishes and asked all my family members what they would want. A grieving period is the worst time to have family disagreements, since they affect every individual person so deeply and permanently. Some of the people attending that funeral will likely always feel a sting when they look back on how it went/was organized.

[Ella85]

I currently don't have a will and it does worry me. Because I am going though immigration to close the distance with SO I had decided it was better to wait until I had moved. I will be writing a will but also need to find out where I stand legally with some other issues if something were to happen. Life insurance is defiantly important.. don't want to leave those we leave behind with incurred debt at our expense. Nothing worse when you are grieving believe me. My ex father in law died while living here and had no policy, no money, nothing. It was very difficult and complicated to arrange funeral expenses for him and it did not help with everything that happened. That said I was lucky and had some wonderful people step in to help. Had I have not been so lucky, I would have been £3000 in debt. I still feel like his send off was less than it should have been and his family after receiving the ashes... we shall not go into. Just a lesson learned the hard way.

[kittyxuchiha11]

When my dad died it was very sudden and he had no will or life insurence so My mum and his parents had to cough up the money to pay for his funeral that although was incredibly simple at the gravesite still cost a small fortune. it made us all realise how fragile life is and how we all need to have things put in place. My mum now has a will leaving everything to me and wants to keep it that way no matter who's she's dating and such sicne she wants me to handle everything she has. I don't have a will quite yet but i know the importance of it and will definitely be writing my children and probably my future wife into it.

[R&R]

I have 3 different life insurance polices that total almost $800,000 and my daughters are beneficiaries of all of it. They are well aware of it and the responsibilities that come with that. That means to pay off any debt that death does not discharge and to pay for my cremation. They also know that I do not wish for a headstone anywhere, so that is their choice if they choose to buy a plot and purchase a headstone. I don't have a lot of material things, so they will divvy them up as they want.

When SO and I get married, I will put one of the smaller policies in his name and at that point write a will so that there is no discrepancy that my children are to get the main amount of the funds.

[Honour]

Parents have a will set aside, but I don't have one of my own. I honestly think "being too young" is my reason for this. I can't say I've given it much thought, nor will I yet.

[MissButterfly]

You don't need an official will to make your wishes known to close family. All of us could die tomorrow, and it can give loved ones a lot of comfort to know what you wanted for your funeral. No need to think about legal stuff like money and belongings at our age, but it's never too early to think about the emotional side of things. Just make an informal document on your computer that you update once in a while, and make sure some people know where to find it. It isn't weird to have this, or at least it shouldn't be. The company I work for is campaigning so that people talk about their death when still alive, because it's natural and can save family so much pain and stress. Of course we all hope this is irrelevant and we'll all live a healthy life until we're old, but you never know.

[80anthea]

The company I work for is campaigning so that people talk about their death when still alive, because it's natural and can save family so much pain and stress. Of course we all hope this is irrelevant and we'll all live a healthy life until we're old, but you never know.

I think this is really important. We don't like talking about death but sadly it is one of the only certainties in life so we can't hide from it. My SO and I have had a chat about such things and we both know where each other stand on things like funerals, life-support machines, organ donation etc.

[differentcountries]

We have been thinking about writing a will, but we are postphoning it until we know how we want to arrange things in the future. I died tomorrow, my husband would be the benificier of my life policy and he would inherhit my half of our flat so he could keep it. There isn't a whole lot more valuables to go around as I don't have any savings. If we owned a Turkish summer house I would want to leave it to SO. We have always said that if SO moves here, or we get a child, whichever comes first, we are going to write wills. In it I would also want to write about the small personal stuff that people are emotional about, like jewlery and hairloomes and books etc, like which of my siblings, cousins and friends would get what. If my father has died when I die, I want my siblings to split my share of his share of the family cottage unless I have children in which case I want them to have it. If we have children, I want to make sure they inherit all three of us. We will probably hire a laywer or two to make sure that what we decide will become valid.

BTW, both I and my husband have organ donor cards.

I am not sure I would want to plan my own funeral, I have to think about that.

My parents don't have a will, but since they are married the one who is widowed will not need to make up the estate. I know my parents have savings and I assume there is funeral money. There has been no quarrals in my family on either side when people have died, when my granddad died all siblings cooporated on owning the cottage (the house was already sold). I have talked with my siblings that I as the eldtest child want to do the logists when our last parent die so we all know it will happen like this.

With my husband's parents, they have threatened to cut his brother out of the will (and have perhaps done it legally), so he and I have talked to the brother and his wife that we will set up a two seperate funds for each of his children, and we will also subtract expensive gifts that my husband has been given, from the estate and essentially give them the bigger share. Come to think of it, that should probably go in my husband's will.

I know that SO owns a part of his family house (or should I say farm) and part of the seperate allotment of land that the family has. The long term plans as far as I understand it to use family money to expand the house by one storage so that more people can live there or/and visit. I have told SO that after closing the distance I want our family to take part that project and send money for building materials etc. I regard it as family property though and my only concern is that if we had a child if the child would also lehgally inherit - which is one of the things to consider t when setting an official father to the child, and to make sure that a will would make up for what was not automatically there.

[Mims27]

I did officially change my beneficiary to my wife, a few months ago. As far as funeral goes, I know my family will include her if I die in the near future. And they all also know what type of "furneral" I want. Something cheap, non-religious and I want to be placed at the cottage in our backyard.

[hmrambling]

A lot of estate planning websites suggest that we write down our final arrangement (funeral, burial, cremation, whatever) wishes separate from the will. The will oftentimes calls for an executor or executrix to see the will out. For final wishes, a will isn't necessary.

For example, in my state a document that I have handwritten, signed, and dated is considered a legal document. If I were to take the time to write out that I want friends and family to gather at my church to celebrate my life, and I want my pastor to deliver the service, and that I want to be cremated, that would be binding. It would also suffice that the handwritten document would adequately notify my family and friends what I want my final arrangements to be. So I wouldn't need a will to convey what I want.

Furthermore, I could make an account that is POD (payable on death) to whoever I want to see out my final arrangements. I wouldn't even need a life insurance policy if I had the funds in my account for my final arrangements. Why would a person do such a thing (have money set aside in their own account for their own funeral)? Because folks like my sister exist. She was the sole beneficiary of my mother's life insurance policy and didn't use that money to bury my mother. She kept the money instead. And I borrowed money for my mother's services and burial.

When a person names a beneficiary, that beneficiary isn't obligated to do what you want (as evidenced in the original post as well).

[snow]

I am definitely not prepared for this and I'm probably not going to start anytime soon. Death gives me bad anxiety so I don't want to think about it atm, however, I do know my family would include my husband and his family, so that much is clear..