Putting on the Saddle and Riding the Horse

Getting my Estate Matters in Order

By Joni Johnson

I was sitting with two friends discussing the Estate Matters document that showed up in everyone at RVM’s in-house mailbox.   I am on the committee that created it (although all the Kudos go to Connie Kent, Bob Carter and Jim Ellis- I was just there to say “good job”).  So I knew it was coming and what was in it. My husband, Tom, and I had seen a lawyer just before the 2020-2021 Covid quarantine in order to change all of our legal issues from California to Oregon.  We had paid for our cremation, picked out which color we wanted for our shrouds and everything.  We have no children.  I wasn’t too worried and thought we were in pretty good shape.  However, did I have a handle on everything?  Did I know where everything was? Not exactly.

 First Page of Estate Matters

So there I was, sitting with these two friends, one of whom was Eleanor Lippman discussing the Estate Matters document when she and I decided that we would get our acts together and get started.   That very day, she contacted me to say she was already up to section 8.  There are only 8 sections plus resources.  I wrote back to say that I had painted all afternoon and evening and was very happy with my work.  But it was humiliating.  So I finally decided that I REALLY had to get my act together and get started. Luckily, I tend (after a small 8 pm nap) to have a burst of energy that lasts from 9 pm to midnight or later, so I was on fire.  I got to my computer, clicked on the fillable form and started working.  Well, that was a shock.  I knew a lot about me, but I did not have all the information I needed about my husband.  In my family, I’m the one who does this kind of activity.  Each family is different and so for some it is the wife, for some it is the husband, and for some it is no one. And if you are in the latter category, you better get cracking because while it isn’t that hard, it takes more time than you think.

As you know, Eleanor wrote a beautiful statement for the RVM list. I will attach a link to her statement at the end of the article.  Some of my comments will probably mirror hers.  Some will be different.  First of all, where was my will and cremation information?  Now I have them and have their locations described in the Estate Matters document.  And some of the other pieces of information that would be incredibly helpful in developing an obituary or for documents necessary after our passing, I had nothing written.  Where did I go to school?  What was Tom’s military history?  Where did I live before my last home in California?  I know I got awards but I can’t remember any of them so that is still on the to-do list.

And while looking at the will, I realized that the person we had named as our representative after both of us had passed no longer worked at the same place.  This, of course, required a call and visit to our lawyer which then necessitated a rewriting of our wills and and reconfirmation about why, for us, wills were the best way to go.  In California, we had trusts.  Here, due to financial changes etc, differences in Oregon law and no children to worry about (and yes, our dog is well provided for) we had chosen to opt for individual Wills.  After talking with everyone here, after the Estate Matters project started, people kept telling us that we needed trusts.  So we were very glad to go back to our lawyer and be very specific about why, in our case, wills were the better solution.  In addition to finding a new representative to take care of our financial matters after we die rather than making one of our siblings the administrator, we decided on choosing someone outside the family circle and then paying them for their services out of our estate.

Also, because we have no children, we felt it was important to find someone here in Medford who could act as our health manager in case of illness totally separate from the advanced directive.  This was something I had wanted to do for a long time, but I had let it lie fallow as a future item thinking that somehow it would magically get done.

So thanks to Eleanor and my promise to let her know that I would get my act together, and to her prodding when I didn’t, we are now pretty well moving forward getting everything we need accomplished.

If you are in good shape, I congratulate you.  If not, please let this article move you to get started.  It is never too late.  Until it is.

Here is a fillable form you can use for your estate planning: Estate Matters. Either print it out and fill it in by hand, or complete it on the screen then print it out filled in. This links directly to MyRVM. The Complement will not save your completed document.

Here is the same thing in MS Word — ESTATE MATTERS 6-7-21, which you can edit and personalize after downloading it to your computer.

Link to Eleanor Lippman’s comments on the List-Serve:

Implementing my Estate Plan- Revisited