Do you have a Will/Living Will?

[roz]

It is also important that you follow the requirements of your state. My parents had wills executed in Washington State. When my dad died, that was ok because he was in Washington. When my mom died it wasn't because I had moved her to Pennsylvania. Washington required the wills to be witnessed and notarized. Pennsylvania has a requirement that the notary certify that they verified that all the signatures were authentic signatures. I had to run around and get people to attest to the fact that my mother's signature was real--and of course no one was local so they could not just come in. Nope, they had to go to their local Register of Wills and sign an affadavit there and I had to wait for them to send it to my Register of Wills. Add that chore to your grieving process.

[Kristie]

Originally Posted by ccbegay

I grew up basically w/o either parent, so between my sister and I we have this "thing" if something happened to either one of us, how affairs would be handled, especially concerning my brother who is only 15. I know it's nothing unofficial and WILL do something in the near future. My thing is, I don't want either parent/relative that really took no part in our upbringing trying to 'pull' something when something does happen...ya know...

if your really that worried about it, then you should hop to it and get er done.. you never know when things are gonna go awry. the sooner is always better.

[ccbegay]

Originally Posted by Kristie

if your really that worried about it, then you should hop to it and get er done.. you never know when things are gonna go awry. the sooner is always better.

I know...I talked about it with G...and it is a safe idea to do so...so here I go...

[Erin]

We have wills, living wills/healthcare proxies and also just, gulp, purchased a pair of plots at our favorite cemetery (I know, kind of morbid to have a "favorite" but we are both traditional Catholics and want to be buried somewhere that might be visited by other Catholics interested in our souls...)

It was a good feeling knowing that just about everything is in place, just in case. I really woke up to needing to get these done right after 9-11. I realized that so many people died that day, in such a horribly public way... and wondered what I would do if Tom were to perish in such a way, how would I be able to handle everything? Easy... plan now. Hard to consider while still living? Yes, but much easier to manage when you are breathing!

[jr_lenz]

Something to note, a living will is different than a personnel will. A living will is in regards to your healthcare wishes if in fact you become ill and cannot voice your choices. These are free to do, all you have to do is pick up a packet at your local hospital.

Something to think about, all of the supreme court cases about life support vs death have been over 30 year old women. As you grow older the highest chance of death is from illness. What do you do when you get a life threating illness, you get things in order. The younger you are your highest chance of death is from accident. What happens when you are young and in a accident, your family fights about how you should live and die. When you are young the chances are that whatever has put you in the hospital will leave you in that middle ground, if you haven't made it clear of what you want do, you have just made a very difficlut sistuation even worse, now your family has to deal with make the tough desicions, as well as dealing with what ever has happened to you.

Living will are not just for people you are in bad health, or have children. They should be done by all of you who have famliy and loves ones. they should be done by all of you who have a any ideas at all on how you want to live or die. If you don't say what you want a judge who never knew could make the final choices about your life.

Think hard about who will carry out your choices, sometimes the end of life choices are to hard for parents/spouces, b/c they can't seprate from the emotion of losing their child/spouce. Depends on yours. My brother is name as my power of attonrey for my living will.

Sorry for the soap box, I have seen things go very bad, very quick, for those without living wills.

[Imachickadee75]

Sorry to jump in so late, but my dad is an attorney and I can't count the sad, terrible stories he's brought home of families without wills. However, with that said, he drew up wills for DH and me when DS was born and it took us over a year to get them signed and notorized. We too struggled with who to raise our kids. No one was a perfect choice but we felt it was important to have them raised by a family member. My brother can be a real ass sometimes to his wife, but she is an incredible woman and I think it would be okay. My sisters are both way to crazy and neurotic to raise my kids and my parents too old. And there was no one on DH's side we'd even consider. We also named a backup family that is one of my best friends from college. We don't have much financially but that is all laid out as well as a local executor of our estate as we live so far from family. This person would sell our house and get everything in order.

In terms of a living will, that is something we haven't done and probably should. I know DH's wishes and they are kind of vague. He basically says, "when you're ready turn off the machines". Well you can imagine how that might go over with family! Guess we'd better get on the stick!

Jackie

[czechmate]

Thanks for all your input. This is something we've been putting off far to long.

My next door neighbor is a lawyer and I've discussed this topic with her before. I think I might ask her to help us draw up something legal.

As for a living will, DH and I (and my parents) are all in agreement to only use artificial means to life to harvest parts for donors --and nothing else. But we understand that we need to have it in writing.

As to be buried - WOW. We've talked about it but we cannot decide a location. Neither of us are from Kentucky and neither of us want to "be in Kentucky" forever!!!!

Somedays I hate being a grown up.

[Brenda]

ughh, see that wa the problem we were having, deciding whether to be buried or cremated. If we were buried, where? The majority of my fam is in Mexico, his has an area in Illinois and Indiana, can't remember which one. Mexico and Indiana are not where I want to be. So, we told his parents that for our plots we could have our names on there but our bodies would not be in the ground. They got extremely upset, well, my MIL did. She wants her precious son with her, even in the end. So, she's thinking of selling our spots! But, we did put that in writing so that she can't say anything should one of us go first.