This website does not intend to be legal advice but contains general information. Please consult a lawyer or other professional to determine how the information on these pages might apply to you.

Importance of a Will

Whether from your own planning perspective, or from the perspective of handling someone else’s estate, it’s important to understand why a properly written will is essential and pivotal to the accurate and smooth handling of your funds and possessions after death.

If a will is written properly, it becomes a legal document that carries power in a court of law. All legal documents have a formal structure, and are written in concise, professional language to eliminate any potential for misinterpretation. This ensures that your precious and hard-earned financial assets and possessions go precisely to where and to whom you want them to go.

Why we procrastinate

Still, despite the power of a will, over half of all Canadians do not have a dependable will. Why not?

• Some people still begrudge the costs (both financial and time-wise) associated with creating one. Choosing a cheap hammer might make sense for a small job; choosing a cheap solution to writing a will opens up a huge arena for error and misunderstanding, and gives a shaky foundation to a very complicated, stressful, and emotional process.
• Writing a will can feel very intimidating, a task full of difficult decisions, details, and costs.
• Every will needs to be reviewed at least every ten years. Out-dated wills are the cause of much confusion and frustration.
• Some people write a will themselves from a store-bought generic template. If one small, legal detail is neglected, the entire document becomes useless.
• Many allow procrastination to win out and have no will at all.

It’s easy to see why people procrastinate. But think of it this way. All the decisions and tricky issues you avoid now will get passed on, like an  unwanted legacy, to your loved ones or to whoever gets stuck handling your affairs after you die.

Instead of being remembered for your lifetime of kindness and hard work, your fine memory will be contaminated by confusion, anxiety, resentment, and unnecessary paperwork that can take years to finally clear up.

Is this how you want to be remembered?

A suggestion: Choose a lawyer who will take time to teach, and who will help you make difficult decisions. You will be remembered as a hero.  It will cost a few bucks, but you will be remembered as a hero whose family was looked after even after death.

Choosing to be an Executor

Being named as executor means you are willing to take on the administrative responsibilities of ‘executing’ the wishes of the deceased.

There is nothing romantic about being an executor. It’s a purely administrative task, often complicated and tedious. If you have accepted responsibility for being an executor, prepare yourself for an office job that requires organization, attention to detail, and accountability to impatient family members. And even if you’ve done the job before, there are always stressful learning curves.

Death is an ordeal for all families with the potential of bringing out the very best and the very worst of people. Division of one hundred dollars can split a family into camps of bitter resentment to last a lifetime.

If you are an executor, or getting your own affairs in order, it’s probably impossible to completely prevent feelings of mistrust and greed.  Whenever division of assets is involved, people get impatient, or frustrated, jealous and nervous because they feel like they have no control. When they feel out of control, they blame the executor, the government, other family members, the bank, or often, the deceased, the poor dead person who wrote the will in the first place. Instead of leaving behind fond memories of a good and caring person, somebody in the family is going to remember you because you didn’t give them the snowmobile.

Article written by: Jo Warren

How do I want to be remembered anyway? For what I’ve done, or for what I haven’t done?

We hear so much talk about honouring life. How come nobody ever says, ‘Hey, let’s hear it for death!’?  Isn’t it obvious that life and death are inseparable? If we try to avoid the black parts, we’d end up painting happy faces on all that Yin Yang jewellery. And how happy would that be?

Perhaps I see things from a different perspective than most people. That’s because I work in a funeral home, a place where you can learn a lot of interesting things in a very short amount of time.

One of the things that surprised me (apart from the huge number of bad jokes), was the dawning realization that many people put a great deal of effort into living a decent and accomplished life, but when they die, they leave behind a messy pile of difficult decisions, complicated paperwork, and unnecessary emotional distress for their families to mop up afterwards.

Take John Smith for example. I didn’t know Mr. Smith when he was alive, but I sure got to know him after he died.

Our first introduction occurred when I noticed his ‘memory board’ at the funeral home. Propped on easels at his visitation were three large sheets of cardboard pasted with dozens of photographs of Mr. Smith at various ages and stages of his productive and seemingly successful life.

There were pictures of bald baby John snuggled in his mother’s arms; little John wearing the tiny peaked cap of a dutiful boy scout; and a more impressive peaked cap told me that he had served as an officer in the armed forces. My eyes moved to John pictured arm-in-arm with his beautiful bride, and to a photo of a good father trudging through deep snow pulling three toddlers on the same sled.

Here was middle-aged John looking just like Robert Preston in the Music Man, a shiny tuba strapped to his chest, obviously a valued member of the community marching band. Posed photographs bore witness to his terms of office as president of the Lions Club, chairman of the parish council, and as reigning king of the backyard barbeque.

Mounted in the centre of his life story was a charming photo of John and his wife cutting a cake topped with a big gold ’50,’ the laughing couple totally oblivious to what lay waiting in their future.

I stopped to consider what my own memory board might look like. How would I be remembered? Did I have a choice? Would my storyboard include that picture of me taken when I was fifty-two wobbling on a snowboard in a bad outfit? Would my children remember their mother as a fearless hero, or as a brainless idiot? I’d prefer to be remembered for my good qualities rather than bad outfits, but is it possible to control what other people think? If my own storyboard looked half as good as Mr. Smith’s, I would rest in peace before I died.

At the funeral home, my job is to contact families after a death to help them cancel pensions, apply for benefits, and work through a complete estate checklist. A few days after her husband’s funeral, I phoned Myra Smith, John’s widow, to book an appointment.

When I arrived at her home, she looked exhausted. She told me she hadn’t been sleeping because she was so worried about the paperwork, and to add to her troubles, she had lost the hearing in one ear on the day her husband died. Her doctor told her it is not unusual for people to suffer a negative physical response to high stress.

For five months, Myra had felt helpless as she watched her loving husband turn into her dying husband, a deceased husband, and finally into a legal responsibility.

Although she was in her late seventies, Myra had taken the bus to visit John in the hospital every day, often carrying a plate of ethnic home cooking to encourage her husband’s appetite. She knew her children would visit more often if they could, but they all had busy lives, or lived out-of-town.

She told me that after John had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, he refused to talk about dying, let alone a funeral. Myra had a lot of questions about her own future, but she didn’t think it was right to push a sick man into having uncomfortable conversations.

When her husband died, she picked a funeral home from the Yellow Pages. Distraught and disoriented from grief, she sat down with a funeral director to make the many necessary decisions alone.

When she was asked if Mr. Smith was to be buried or cremated, she didn’t know. She had always assumed they’d be buried side by side, but now she wasn’t so sure. Years ago, she had heard her husband joking with a neighbour,  ‘When I die, just toss me on the barbie, and put my ashes in a coffee can.’

It took Myra three hours to complete the funeral arrangements. If she was uncertain about a decision, she added things to prevent guilt and regret later on. She naturally expected it to cost more than her father’s funeral ten years earlier, but she was shocked to discover that her husband’s arrangements cost twice that amount, and she still had cemetery expenses to think about.

Once the funeral was over, and out-of-town visitors went home, Myra was faced with a mountain of estate details. This is when I met her. Now I’m not an expert in financial or legal issues, but it didn’t take Perry Mason to recognize the muddle she was in.

A will had been written, but nobody could find the original copy; the lawyer had retired and neglected to provide forwarding information. Documents, receipts, and correspondence were stacked in piles around the house, their marriage certificate being the needle in the haystack.

Although they had shared a joint bank account, Mr. Smith had also opened two personal accounts that would remain frozen until she produced the original will, or until she completed a lengthy legal process. Because her own monthly income was low, Myra was terrified about how she would pay funeral bills as well as living expenses as she waited for benefits and survivor’s pensions to be processed.

At a time when Myra only wanted to be left alone to grieve, she was trapped in an emotional pressure cooker where the heat just kept rising. She was mad at her husband for planning so poorly, but she was even angrier at herself for neglecting to take more responsibility in planning for her own well being.

Fond memories of John were being pushed aside by strong feelings of resentment and frustration that made her believe she was being disloyal to her husband. She hopes her affection for John would return to return to comfort her, but right now, her grief was full of questions about why he would leave her in such a pickle.

Estate planning has always been important, but in the past, life was simpler, and many decisions were based on trust and good faith. Today’s world is dominated by privacy acts, complex communication, paranoia about identity theft, and fear of litigation wherever you turn.

Neglecting to plan for this reality is an avoidance tactic similar to shoving dirty laundry under the bed because, hey, when you can’t see it, the problem disappears! You might get away with that when you’re thirteen, but if you’re old enough to pay taxes, it’s just plain old irresponsible.

Many people give the impression that, in their lives, ‘Family is First.’ But then you’ll hear them say something like, ‘It doesn’t matter what happens after I die because I won’t be around to see it.’ Really?

We don’t exist in a vacuum. My grandparents told me about their grandparents; I tell my grandchildren about their grandparents; and my grandchildren will tell their children about me. The details of my life will become blurred when I die, but the spirit in which I leave will be passed on to the people I love. Like the song, our love, (or lack of it) will go on and on and on.

How do I want to be remembered? For what I’ve done, or for what I haven’t done? My final act can be self-centered and negative, leaving a bitter-taste in my children’s memories, or I can leave the stage with a graceful bow, a gesture of love to reside in my children’s hearts to help them along the way.

Estate and funeral planning is not for wimps. It takes maturity, generosity, and some mighty muscle to plan, and pay for, rewards that we won’t reap ourselves.

The foundations of good planning are prevention and protection; we prevent our hard-earned assets from going the wrong direction, and we do our best to prevent unnecessary distress for the people we love the most. Thoughtful planning for people after we die could be considered the ultimate gift of love.

Too bad someone doesn’t open a Great Canadian Superstore for Estate and Funeral Planning to make our planning easier. Under one roof, we would spend the day attending seminars, sipping lattes, and browsing storefronts for the best deals in wills, funeral plans, and caskets. For our last stop, we would ask a financial advisor how to pay for it all and still have a few bucks leftover for a new snowboard.

While we wait for the superstore to be invented, we must roll up our sleeves and do our planning the hard way. We start by seeing a lawyer to make a will. A properly written will isn’t about how much money we have. It is a legal document that ensures that our assets go where we want them to go, makes things move faster, and reduces stress and arguments of family members.

When the will is done, we ask the lawyer to draw up two more documents: an Enduring Power of Attorney, and a Representation Agreement.  These two legal documents are critically important should we become mentally incapable.

An Enduring Power of Attorney appoints someone we trust to make legal and financial decisions on our behalf; the Representation Agreement (Personal Directive, Living Will, etc.) gives someone we trust the power to make health-related decisions, such as resuscitation and levels of care, on our behalf.  If someone has entered even the first stages of mental incapability, it becomes a very stressful, time-consuming, and expensive process to get these documents in place.

To plan your funeral, contact a local funeral home or establishment to ask what you can do ahead of time to prevent leaving your family in a lurch.  This might take a bit of courage, especially for all you lifelong members of the popular ‘I’m-Not-Going-To-Die’ Club.

After working in a funeral home for ten years helping thousands of unhappy faces, I feel fully justified in ordering you to wipe that happy face off your Yin Yang necklace, and start facing the funeral music. How do you want to be remembered anyway? For what you’ve done? Or for what you haven’t done? Have I said that before?

Once you’ve completed your planning, be proud of yourself. By sidestepping the sticky mud of procrastination, you’ve defied the statistics! Your reward will be on earth enjoying the true meaning of peace of mind.

How do I want to be remembered anyway? Have I said that already? I might not be able to change the bad outfits on my memory board, but I can certainly honour my own life /death with a stylish exit.

Jo Warren, M.A., worked at a Calgary funeral home for ten years as a Family Care Counsellor, and as a Funeral Planning Advisor. In previous lives, she was a teacher and art therapist. She welcomes comments about her writing at jowarren@shaw.ca.

Imagine…

• While scuba diving in Costa Rica, your father-in-law suffers a heart attack and drowns.
• Driving the Coquihalla Highway, your elderly parents hit a patch of black ice, crash into the median, and both die.
• Your husband, returning from a business trip to Saskatchewan, falls asleep at the wheel. His car leaves the road, flips over, and he dies at the scene.
• Your wife makes regular trips from Revelstoke to Kelowna for doctor’s appointments. A logging truck sideswipes her car and she dies on the highway.

Your imagination is not necessary because these stories are all true.

When these deaths happened, families had much more to cope with than funeral planning. In a state of shock and disbelief, they were forced to enter the frightening realm of crisis management.

Funeral directors and police are experienced professionals trained to handle this type of tragedy. For families, it is a nightmare of confusion, helplessness, and uncontrollable costs.

We take out health and travel insurance for vacations and long trips, but do we know what expenses would be covered if we died? Who would foot the bills until the claim was filed? What about a simple 150km road trip? What if we travel alone and have no family? Who takes responsibility for getting my body back home? And who bothers to read the fine print on these policies anyway?

How can we enjoy the benefits of travel and freedom, and at the same time, protect our families from the crisis of dying far away?

A Travel Plan with Complete Coverage and Attention to Detail

In North America last year there were over 70 million trips out of the country and over 200 million trips taken over 100 kms.

There were also hundreds of thousands of families who had to face the harsh reality that 45% of deaths are sudden and unexpected. These deaths often happen away from home, and when it does, families are forced to find a way to bring a loved one back.

This can entail:

• Identification of the body
• Dealing with embassies and interpreters
• Selecting from a myriad of services
• Finding and coordinating with distant countries and funeral homes
• Organizing transportation of the deceased

There are Travel Protection Plans available to:

• Protect you when you travel more than 100 kms away from home, anywhere in the world.
• Handle all necessary legal documents, including a concierge service with foreign governments and agencies to ensure that repatriation occurs as quickly as possible.
• Locates and arranges transportation to a local funeral home near place of death, who will then prepare the deceased for the transportation home.
• Provides transportation for one travelling companion home with the deceased.

Can you imagine the comfort of calling one toll free number to take care of everything? 

Can you imagine all costs being paid upfront by your Travel Plan, usually saving a family thousands of dollars?  

Travel Plans are available for a small one-time fee that covers you for life. Shielding your family from unexpected financial loss has never been so easy and affordable.

Find Out More

Rituals bring people together at a time of tumultuous change (wedding, baby, retirement, death) to bear witness to this change and to begin the new steps in a new direction of life which helps make that journey easier.