[imcarthur]

As fate would have it, I am the clean up detail for my family. I am in the midst of my 3rd round of being an executor. It is never a pleasant job, but someone has to clean up the debris of someone’s life.

This time, it is for my brother who waged a 10 year battle against prostate cancer - with a side of HIV. He died at 57 last November.

I asked him about a will. Nada. I got him all of the paperwork & offered to help. (You might remember that I posted here for a blank will form last fall). In a day or two . . . he said. Every time I brought it up, I got the same answer. Later.

Well, later became never. So now I am coming up to 5 months – including two visits to the lawyer & two court submissions – and I think it is finally done. All of this time, his accounts have been frozen, so I have been paying the leftover bills. The bank wouldn’t let me do an inventory of his safe deposit box. Frozen. I did clean out & give up his squalid apartment but even that I probably shouldn’t have done. And this was a dirt simple estate because I am the sole heir. He never married or fathered, both parents are dead & I am the sole sibling. Simple. Or it should have been . . .

So take 5 minutes of your precious time, get a sheet of paper & a pen & write a damn will. Sign it. Date it. You are done. It’s that simple & it is legal - as long as it is written in your own hand & signed. Or visit your attorney & dot all of the I’s properly.

The people you leave behind - who will clean up your mess - will thank you.

Ian