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Thread: Organizing records for your executor

  1. #31
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    I don’t know why she is sending all those emails. My kids asked me to save all the photo albums and when the time comes they will take the pictures they want. When I first started decluttering I hated it and it was hard to let go of stuff. The more you do it the easier it gets. I started when I was still working full time. Now with only working part time I have a ton of time to do it. If your mom is retired she has lots of time to handle this. I don’t want anyone’s last memory of me to be getting rid of my junk. Having done it twice it’s a burden. Thankfully my parents spared me and I will do the same for my kids. I remember Bae’s horrible stories about his in-laws. He isn’t getting those days back. In the Swedish culture it’s expected and called death cleansing. I actually started at age 50.

  2. #32
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    Different cultures, different families, different individuals and different philosophies.

    we all have the same 24 hours a day. If we are lucky, we can meet our basic needs and have some left over to use as WE wish.

    ”and it hurt none, do as you please”

    but we we both agree that having your papers and financial information in order Is a good thing for us and those we love. And I feel like I derailed this badly.

  3. #33
    Senior Member iris lilies's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chicken lady View Post
    Different cultures, different families, different individuals and different philosophies.

    we all have the same 24 hours a day. If we are lucky, we can meet our basic needs and have some left over to use as WE wish.

    ”and it hurt none, do as you please”

    but we we both agree that having your papers and financial information in order Is a good thing for us and those we love. And I feel like I derailed this badly.
    I dont see derailing, it is all fine to talk about since our discussion relates to things our executor has to take care of.

  4. #34
    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chicken lady View Post
    So teacher terry, I would say you are doing this for yourself. Because you enjoy it, it improves your life, and it aligns with your values. And that is great!

    time and money. I am perfectly content if mil chooses to use her time to get rid of stuff and it results in us getting more money. But I am not willing to “earn” that money by spending time dealing with dozens of emails. I also do not care how she spends her time and wether she enjoys it. But i want my mother to enjoy her life and be happy. And if it costs me money later because she made that choice, I will be glad to give it up. I would be sad to know that she sacrificed her time so that we could inherit more of her money. I guess if you were my mom, I would be happy knowing that it made you happy use your time to save more of your money for me. But if my actual mom wants to give me some of her time, I want the actual time with her, not money that she traded it for by doing things she did not like (which clearing out is in her case - if she got paid for, say, doing library story time with little kids and gave me the money, that would be fine - fun for her and a gift for me.)
    I think we do owe it to parents to recognize the huge emotional burden of transitioning to another life. I saw that ambivalence between wanting to leave the long-time home vs wanting to stay with my MIL. I truly believe that the emergency medical condition she experienced when we were helping her clean out--severe gout which kept her immobilized--was completely psychosomatic. Not that she didn't feel the pain, but that crazy mind-body connection kicked in and she literally couldn't "move."

    And I remember when my favorite aunt lost my uncle and we talked about how difficult it is to move. She lived in the home she raised her kids in for almost two more years, but then her kids took over and had her move in with one of them and they sold the house. I know, based on my conversations with her, that it must have been very difficult. She died six months later.

    So I think, CL, you have a very compassionate view of your situation. To the extent that it is truly in the parent's best interest to enable them to do just what they feel comfortable with at the end of their lives, I think we we should.
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
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  5. #35
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    I would never tell family members what to do. I knew my MIL would never be able to get rid of her stuff so never suggested it. She was a wonderful person that I loved very much. We were still working when she died and it was a big burden in our little spare time. We couldn’t procrastinate because we had to pay lot rent for her trailer. Luckily I found a young mom that wanted it so she paid us 100/month for 5 years and then she owned it.

  6. #36
    Senior Member catherine's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Teacher Terry View Post
    I would never tell family members what to do. I knew my MIL would never be able to get rid of her stuff so never suggested it. She was a wonderful person that I loved very much. We were still working when she died and it was a big burden in our little spare time. We couldn’t procrastinate because we had to pay lot rent for her trailer. Luckily I found a young mom that wanted it so she paid us 100/month for 5 years and then she owned it.
    I'm sure it was a huge burden, TT. It's great that you were able to work out a mutually beneficial arrangement with the young mom!
    "Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every, every minute?" Emily Webb, Our Town
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  7. #37
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    Catherine, we felt great about the mom. The trailer was actually worth more but it ended up being a win-win for everyone. Actually my MIL died unexpectedly at 67 and we were shocked. She had just retired and didn’t even get to go on a trip she planned with friends. That’s one reason we are doing everything we want while we can.

  8. #38
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    I think I am like the CL mother in law, always asking the kids if they want something. I also give them things and tell them if they don't want them, please feel free to move them along in the universe for someone else--this happened with a set of buffalo china I gave them because they didn't have any good china, and then she bought some Pfaltzgraff dishes she liked and I gave her a set of those for Christmas, and I assume the Buffalo china got given away.

    It truly wont hurt my feelings if they want to give something away. I guess to give them things so sometimes it hurts a little when they don't want something, although why that hurts and not them giving it away, I have no idea, except maybe in the latter, they are open to at least trying it.

    The coolest thing that happened in this vein was that I found a great antique sled at a yard sale in Vermont on my way to visit them, and I asked him I could store it in their basement until we moved up there. He said fine, and then I found out they had started using it. But the best thing is that they read Calvin and Hobbes to my grandmother, and Calvin has a sled that looks just like the one I left behind, and my son told her it was the sled from the comic book, only to find that the little child in the 40's in Vermont had written his name on the underside of the sled, and guess what, his name was Calvin.

  9. #39
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    That’s so cool about the sled.

  10. #40
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    My last post was a bit derailing, too, but back to the original topic--this thread is really helping me because my husband and are are so horrified by what we've been going through with my parents and their house and their affairs that we are getting inspired to do things in a completely different way, and to let the kids know what the hell we are doing so that if we are both suddenly wiped out, that they can just step in and follow along with everything and not have to try to figure out what is going on, the way we had to.

    Along that line, we are committing to starting to work on the book of instructions-- we can only stand doing this a little at a time--and had housekeys made to send to each kid so that whoever gets here first can cope.

    Whatever you do, don't appoint one sibling as conduit of all things, as mine did, as the sibling you select may be a unwilling to share information with the other siblings, and try to manipulate everyone in the family with the fact that they are the only ones with access to anything, and assume complete power over decisions about the parents.

    Communicate information to ALL of your children, and do not assume that the oldest or the malest is going to help you the most.

    We aren't even at the executor stage, and this has torn the family apart.

    So hire a damned estate lawyer and let him or her carry out your wishes. Don't make assumptions that you know your children as adults--they are not the same people they were 50 years ago, when they were all so cute and all got along.

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