Stop Procrastinating About Estate Planning

Getting my mother to stop procrastinating and make a decision, any decision, about her estate, was a “someday” task for which “someday” never came. In hindsight I understand her habit of procrastinating well enough to know that making helpful suggestions, such as passing along printed information or lawyers’ phone numbers, were no substitute for scheduling action. I should have fought my own habit of procrastinating, forced the issue, and made greater effort for “someday” to be “now.”

My mother had options at her fingertips, she just steadfastly refused to act. She left her house full of a wide selection of blank pre-printed forms that are intended to make end-of-life planning easier. She’d started some paperwork, but obviously gave up whenever the questions got tough.

Shortly after her death, some phone solicitor called and said he’d been talking to her about a trust fund for years. At first I thought maybe the guy meant she did have a trust fund that I didn’t know about, but he just went into a standard sales spiel and, further, had the nerve to insist I was my dead mother. I got rid of him, while I thought how the guy must’ve pitched her aggressively multiple times–but she must’ve never said either “yes” or “no,” just strung him along.

Just a few months before my mother died, I talked her into meeting a lawyer, telling her it the consultation was free, and all she had to do was listen. She told the lawyer she could do the will herself (she and my father thought alike that way) and she’d just use the local law library. She also said there were some matters she didn’t want to discuss in front of me. The lawyer suggested I leave the room, but she still balked.

At last I saw a way forward, I thought, except the revelation came several years too late. I don’t know what she didn’t want to discuss—I knew the family’s secrets, unless there were some I didn’t know—but that she held such reservations partly explained her reluctance. Had she still been of sound mind, I would’ve driven her to the local law library and sat her down with what was needed, but she was no longer capable of that.

Now I’m looking over some of those blank forms and self-help booklets that she left behind, about making a will and conveying your last wishes, and struggling to answer those questions myself. My own urge to procrastinate is strong. Here are some resources I’m using:

• • • Orange County Office on Aging provides a downloadable brochure, “Everything My Loved Ones Need to Know About Me” available online at: https://www.officeonaging.ocgov.com/resources/downloads
    • Personal Planning Guide from Dignity Memorial, may be downloaded at: https://www.rvcfirel2881.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Personal_Planning_Guide.pdf
    • “Your Way: A Guide to Help You Stay in Charge of Decisions About Your Medical Care” may be ordered for free at the Helping the Elderly Live Productively (HELP) website.