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Ready or Not: Books encourage children to help parents get their houses in order while they can
Journal Illustration by Jeremy Boyd
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Published: September 25, 2008
By the time Tom Wood's mother died here in 2001, she had set up just about everything he needed to handle her estate.
Pauline T. Wood left everything to Tom, her only child, in her will. She had given him power of attorney, which allowed him to act on her behalf in such matters as paying her taxes, and medical power of attorney, which allowed him to make medical decisions for her.
So he didn't run into snags settling her affairs. Still, he found clearing his mother's house of a lifetime's accumulation of goods a taxing, emotional task.
His wife's mother, Mary Phifer, had made out a will, carefully dividing her assets between her two daughters, several years before her unexpected death in 1997. So Candy Wood and her sister knew who was getting what. What Candy Wood didn't know was where her mother wanted to be buried.
"We had not really talked about that," she said. She knew that her mother would want her funeral held at her church in Greensboro, where Phifer lived. But the church doesn't have a burial ground. She inquired about a plot in the Spartanburg cemetery where her father was buried in 1961. But then she decided that it didn't make sense to bury her mother in a town where she had no living family, so she buried her in the same cemetery as Phifer's sister, in Greensboro.
Tom Wood didn't talk to his mother about her burial -- he didn't have to.
"She was a lifelong Moravian," he said. "There was no doubt she wanted to be buried in God's acre with a traditional Moravian service."
Most of us don't like to think about growing old and dying. Intellectually, we know we will. But we don't really accept it. Too many of us put off making decisions and taking action that will make life easier for those who survive us.
Two recent books, The Boomer Burden by Julie Hall and Here and After Book by L.A. Justice, nudge people toward facing the future and taking the steps that need to be taken.
Hall, a personal-property appraiser from Charlotte, fills more than 200 pages with advice on everything from what you might find among your parents' personal belongings -- hundreds of twist ties, rubber bands, out-of-date catalogs, plastic containers -- to keeping a log for skeptical out-of-town siblings that details a parent's deteriorating mental state.
She wrote the book, she said, "because I got really tired of watching my beloved elderly clients being taken advantage of." She watched as neighbors, friends and even relatives removed valuable items from the homes of fragile elderly people, sometimes paying a pittance for items that were worth much more.
"Sadly, it's been my experience that the face of exploitation is often a familiar face," she said. The book is one part of her advocacy on behalf of her elderly clients and their children, who often live in separate towns.
The unexpected death of her best friend prompted Justice, a writer from Boca Raton, Fla., to put together a concise, 20-page booklet for people to fill out for their heirs.
Justice's friend, who died at 69, had made a detailed list that included names of friends to notify of her death, her vital statistics, notes about what she wanted for her memorial. She included such information as a fact that even her children had forgotten -- although she grew up in Arizona, she was born in Missouri.
Justice's booklet includes spaces for such information as where a will is filed, what bank accounts the person had, where the deed to property the person owned is kept and information about safety-deposit boxes.
Hall aims her book at the 78 million baby boomers in the United States whose parents are dying at the rate of 1.5 million each year. Their parents will leave behind as much as $41 trillion in assets, Hall wrote, and tons of stuff. Millions of those dollars will go unclaimed each year, Justice said, because heirs don't know about insurance policies and bank accounts that their parents held.
Parents may have debts that their children are unaware of and everyday bills waiting to be paid. They may not have drawn up wills; 55 percent of Americans haven't, according to Hall.
Just as parents often have to steel themselves before talking to their children about sex, adult children often put off talking to their parents about what will happen when they die. Approach your parents with love and compassion, Hall said, and tell them that you are afraid you will have to make decisions that they wouldn't approve of after they are gone.
Tell them, "We love you and need for you to make these decisions while you are mentally and physically able."
Sometimes children wait too long.
Children may not recognize signs that their parents are deteriorating, physically, mentally or both. And many baby boomers, according to Hall, don't think about death as rationally as past generations. They have watched their parents remain vital long into their retirement years and sometimes refuse to admit it when that vitality diminishes.
Those parents, most of them children of the Depression, may hang on to useless things that they have accumulated. And, Hall said, "When our grandparents died, our parents did not deal with their stuff. They absorbed it." So boomers may be forced to deal with several generations' worth of belongings.
She advises children to encourage their parents to let go of things by offering to take out a box of stuff each time they visit in order to "give them more room." They can talk to parents about how much other people could use and enjoy the things that they don't want to let go of.
She urges elderly parents to distribute or make arrangements for the distribution of heirlooms while they are still alive so that adult children won't fight over Grandma's sideboard or Great-Grandpa's Civil War sword. She suggests making a computerized list of all the items that parents plan to bequeath, print out a copy for each child and have the parents sign and date it. Many people decide to simply let their children slug it out, which can lead to wrecked relationships between siblings.
Children who get stuck cleaning out their parents' accumulated stuff should remember a couple of things. Just because it is old doesn't mean that it is valuable, and they shouldn't throw everything out without having an appraiser take a look. Do throw away plastic, paper, toiletries, items that have been opened, old magazines, and most kitchen goods, Hall said. Donate books that you don't want. A few antique books may be valuable, but most aren't.
Older people sometimes hide valuables in pockets and the soles of shoes or wrapped in socks or underwear. They stuff things in drapery hems, canister sets, ice-cube trays, toilet tanks and attic rafters. If you can't find Mom's pearl earrings, check those places.
With her booklet, Justice provides people with an easy way to record their wishes and vital information. The pages contain blanks for the names, addresses and phone numbers of children, for people and organizations to be notified at the time of a death, and instructions for a funeral or memorial service. The booklet also includes space to leave instructions for the care of pets and final messages that people might want to leave for their loved ones.
People can let their loved ones know about their assets, such as insurance policies and stocks and bonds.
Having a will is not enough, Tom Wood said, adding that no rule says that people have to keep their executors informed about where their funds are.
■ Janice Gaston can be reached at 727-7364 or at jgaston@wsjournal.com.
■ The Boomer Burden, $14.99, is available in local bookstores.
The Here and After Book can be ordered, in English or in Spanish, by sending $12.95, plus $2.50 postage, to Justice, P.O. Box 25, Boca Raton, Fla., 33429.
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