When an email from my dad with the subject line “Estate Info” popped into my mailbox, I cringed.
My parents have been transparent about their estate planning for a long time — perhaps partially because when I was in my 20s, my younger brother died unexpectedly, and I became their only surviving child. When I was in my 30s and starting a family of my own, my parents even invited me to a planning meeting with their estate attorney.
Unfortunately, I needed it just a few months later, when my dad died 10 days after being diagnosed with cancer.
My dad chose his inheritance with his siblings
My dad comes by this pragmatic approach honestly. His parents, my grandparents, once invited their adult children over to choose which pieces of artwork they’d like when my grandparents died. A morbid spin on an art show, perhaps, but my grandparents felt strongly that allowing their children to participate in choosing their inheritance would make future life a smidge smoother.
So in 2019, when my dad sent me that email entitled “Estate info”, I didn’t welcome the email with open arms, but it also wasn’t out of the blue. My dad was 74 and seemingly healthy at the time, and since his parents had lived to be 89 and 94, I figured I’d tuck the info away until some blurry future day when I needed it. Which I did end up needing.
My dad died on Father’s Day
In an unfun twist of fate, the day after my dad died happened to be Father’s Day. Instead of celebrating him and my husband over brunch, I was 3,000 miles away from my husband and kids, living out of a suitcase, revisiting the brutal physicality of grief, the way it feels like something had been ripped out of my chest.
While my world felt as if it’d ground to a halt, bureaucracy slows down for no one. My mom and I had to let people know my dad had died. We needed to choose a mortuary and contact my parents’ attorney and financial advisor. We needed to order death certificates to bring or send to banks, life insurance companies, and utility companies.
Those days were a haze of shock, decisions, and tasks. While my dad’s file didn’t soften that feeling in my sternum, I often pondered how much worse it’d be if we’d had to embark on elaborate treasure hunts for important documents and information.
I wish I could thank my dad
The file my dad sent me contained all the information we’d need as we settled his estate, including:
- My parents’ Social Security numbers
- A list of all bank accounts
- The physical location of important documents, like life insurance policies, house deeds, and other files
- Passwords
- Information on auto, home, health, and long-term care insurance
- Information on retirement benefits
- Information on a financial advisor
- Information on an estate attorney
- Information on advance care directives
It’s been over six years now since my dad died. As I revisit that estate document, I’m struck by how much thought he put into creating it. I can picture him sitting at his kitchen island, pecking away at his laptop, trying to make sure he’d included every single bit of information we might need. He’d thought through everything — he’d even included the location of a document with biographical details we could use while writing his obituary.
Contemplating his own death in such detail couldn’t have been pleasant. But he did it anyway. I think about the discomfort I’d felt when my parents openly talked about their estate plans, and I view it differently now. It’s not fun to talk about death, but what’s even less fun is when someone dies and the people left behind have to figure it all out — while grieving.
I’ve come to see my dad’s file as what it was — a continuation of the steady love he’d been giving me my whole life. One last way, even after he was gone, that he could father me.
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