if you will?
now is the time to amend my will and choose godparents for my children. to be responsible about death. i am not planning on dying, but either were the tsunami disaster victims. you just never know.
pre sebastian our wills consisted pretty much of whoever looked after our cats got $10,000 a year for the cat’s life and as much of our furniture as they (and the cats) wanted. our siblings got our money/jewellery, our parents got our photos and personal effects. we threw in cash bonuses for people who would care for favorite books, etc.
but add children into the world and the ability to write a cavalier eccentric will is no longer part of the equation. the desire to have them looked after is so strong.
who can i ask to raise my children? what are the criteria when choosing guardians? i can’t guarantee a huge financial windfall upon our deaths. my parents currently are sebastian’s guardians. but is it fair to ask them to take on three more children? would they want to take on the possibility of three more children? and we wouldn’t split the family apart: in the case of our deaths i would want the kiddies to stay together.
i don’t like this part of the will. the other stuff, the division of property is much easier. i think my parents have got it figured out when it comes to division of property. i’m not saying they are old, but they have seen enough families unravel when a relative dies and the will is read.
in order to prevent our their children from unnecessary fighting after their deaths, my dad took us aside a few summers ago and basically told us what the wills contained, so that there be no surprises and hurt. and no surprise: the will was being divided four ways. there are four children.
when it came to art, assets, etc, i think each of us gets a different coloured stickie pad, and then we roll dice to see who goes first, second, etc. and then the games begin. basically everything will be laid out, and the person who goes first gets first choice on what they want. if graeme wants some of mum’s jewellery, then he has just as much right to it as pam, mandy or myself. that’s very good.
(i am not going to say what i am going to choose because i know at least one of my siblings reads this blog and even in my grief, i know i will be acquisitive.)
i think what my parents have done is tres cool. after a person dies, you can’t ask them questions about why they left the boy the tiffany lamp when he never admired it. my parents are giving us free reign, and not assuming we have attachments to items we may not. any questions we have, we can ask now.
sort of a message from the grave, in reverse.
so, time to get off procrastinating about writing about wills and actually doing it.
