The Idiot's Guide to Losing a Parent

Disclaimer: This is serious. And descriptive. And a little sad. And kind of irreverent, too. But it's really important so I hope you'll read on. I just don't want to choke anybody up at the office.

I really appreciate all the kind and supportive comments about my dad's passing - even from some people we don't know! In the last two years I have learned a whole lot of things that I never thought I'd need to know, and I honestly wish somebody would have told me this stuff. This is important life and death stuff that my fussy little liberal arts college definitely didn't teach me. Where is The Idiot's Guide to Losing a Parent? I would be underlining and writing in the margins if I had such a book. I was ranting about that yesterday, and somebody suggested that I go ahead and write it. Not such a bad idea, actually, except that I kind of have a few things going on right now... and I'm not an author. So, in lieu of my first literary masterpiece, I give you my current soapbox: three things everyone should do NOW to alleviate a lot of major stress later.

Thing Number One: Somebody Needs Power of Attorney
For those of you who like to keep score, Dad did this one right. When he was diagnosed two years ago he immediately got the paperwork in order to give me Power of Attorney. That meant that I was able to act in his stead for nearly any purpose. I could call his doctors and discuss his condition and treatment. I could go to the bank and transact business on his account. In situations where you're normally told "we can't tell you that" I was told what I needed to know about my Dad, and I had the ability to do what needed to be done on his behalf.

You should talk to your parents about who has their Power of Attorney. Sure it might be awkward if you have siblings who squabble over that sort of thing, but I assure you that it is well worth the difficult discussion it may precipitate. Once somebody has been assigned Power of Attorney, that person needs a certified copy of the document. There were quite a few times where a wave of that paper got me the information I needed.

Thing Number Two: We All Need An Advance Directive
(AKA "Health Care Directive" or "Living Will")
An Advance Directive (I'm calling it AD from here on out cause I'm lazy) is official documentation of your end-of-life wishes. It indicates whether you want to be kept on life support, what kind of pain management you want, and how your dignity can be honored at the end of your life. This was another process we completed at the time of Dad's cancer diagnosis. I sat with him while he filled it out and we discussed it. He made sure that I understood his wishes and asked me to promise that they would be carried out. It was a hard talk. It freaked me out. It was also the single greatest gift he could have given me at the end of his life.

We put Dad's AD on file in the "Choices Bank" at his hospital. They gave him a wallet-card with a unique number which could be used by any health-care provider to access his document - even at another hospital or elsewhere in the country. Ironically, when Dad was brought to the emergency room in that very hospital in February - unconscious and near death - they didn't know he had an AD. I had to tell them! Imagine what would have happened if I hadn't known?! This is why you need to have the conversation now.

Dad's wishes were pretty clear: no machines, no life support, no vegetative state, and plenty of morphine thank you very much. When I arrived at the hospital nearly 24 hours after he'd been admitted, he was hooked up to everything imaginable and he was pissed. He couldn't talk (because of the breathing tube that shouldn't have been in his throat) and he was not lucid at every moment, but it was obvious. The look in his eyes when he met my gaze clearly told me "you and I had a deal and this was not it." The doctor visited me and offered me two options: 1) allow them to perform a risky brain surgery with only moderate hope of any improvement, or 2) allow him to continue in his current state. I had to decide whether Dad should live or die. That is a horrible rotten no-good awful thing to ask a person to decide. I cannot imagine how I could have handled that situation if I hadn't known exactly what Dad wanted. What if I hadn't had Power of Attorney? I wonder how much they could have told me, and how carefully they would have honored my requests. What if there was no AD? How would I have known what to do? And how would I have lived with the decision for the rest of my life? Now you see why that conversation we'd had two years prior - and the official documentation to back it up - was so precious and important. I told them to take away all the machines and give him some peace. The look in his eyes as he slipped away was one of total relief. And I know that I did the right thing.

We all need AD's and we need to discuss them with our loved ones. You can find the form for your state here.

Thing Number Three: Have a Will
Sadly, this is where Dad did not do such a great job and we learned this one the extra-hard way. The first questions we had to answer after Dad passed were "did he have a will?" and "do you know where it is?" Oh massive planning fail. I had NO idea whether Dad had a will. But if there was one, we had to find it because nothing could happen until we answered those two questions.

I was lucky that Dad had down-sized to a fifth-wheel. At least we had one small area (with a zillion nooks and crannies we soon discovered) to be searched. We turned the place upside down. We looked EVERYWHERE. We went so far as to shake out books hoping important documents would fall from the pages. We looked under the seat of his pickup truck. Jim searched every document on his computer and every sent email for any reference to a will. When we couldn't find it we felt like we'd done our best and threw in the towel. It was at that point that someone told us that it might be in a safe-deposit box at a bank, or maybe a copy would be on file with the attorney who originally drew it up. Those were good helpful suggestions, but they made me cry. Call every attorney in town? What about the ones who were retired or had moved away? And a safe-deposit box? At what bank? And with what non-existent key should we open it? That just wasn't going to happen. We had to proceed without a will. And that's when I learned a new dirty word: probate.

I'm sure the attorneys in the crowd (hi friends!) will be correcting me all over the place, but that's why this is the Idiot's Guide, and not the Smartypants Attorney's Guide. (Aside: it has been super handy to have a Smartypants Attorney. If I was going to go so far as adding a Thing Number Four, that might be it).

So...probate. LAME. Probate is a big ole complicated process whereby I have to prove that I am the sole heir, and then get a court order to back me up. On more than one occasion I was reminded that this is the time when my heretofore unknown half-siblings just might come out of the woodwork. Wha? Once we established the "lack of heretofore unknown kin" the state of Montana (where the buffalo roam...) gave me a new title: "Personal Representative of the Estate of Dad." And like any good promotion, that title came with a heap of responsibility and no additional pay. Rather than reading the will and divvying up the fishing gear to the appointed recipients, I became responsible for every blessed thing Dad owned. It's not stuff, it's "assets." And since when is a travel trailer full of fishing gear "assets" an estate? Only in Montana.

I suppose I should get back on task. Being in probate means that we had to account for all of Dad's assets (right down to the silverware we donated to Goodwill and the dirty socks we threw out). Then we have to sell off all the assets, put the money back into the estate, and use it to pay off all of his bills. We have to do his taxes! Taxes for someone who is no longer with us? Wait - I can actually believe that. We have to account for the postage it takes to forward his mail to the SmartyPants Attorney. I now have an estate bank account, an estate Tax ID number, and a heap of headaches that could have been avoided if we'd had a will. PS - if anyone's interested in purchasing the actual 29-foot estate-on-wheels I have that too. The real kicker? Probate has to last at least six months. Apparently they commonly last two years. Two years of this bologna? Lawsie mercy.

So, the point of Thing Number Three is that we should all get wills drawn up. Jim and I will do ours when we get married. We aren't exactly dripping in assets but having even a simple will frees our loved ones from the big bad probate. Hear me now: nobody that I love will have to catalog my dirty socks.

Before I step off my soapbox, I want to emphasize that timing is really important. Things One through Three should be done now, while everyone is healthy and of sound mind. We tried to talk Dad into visiting the doctor about eight weeks before he died and he stubbornly refused because he wasn't thinking well. I was so thankful that I wasn't trying to get him to sign Power of Attorney or complete an Advance Directive in that state of mind. It would have been a nightmare and it probably wouldn't have gotten done.

And there it is: The Idiot's Guide to Losing a Parent. AKA: my usual irreverent blather, but on an important topic for once!

PS - Hey Mom, can we talk about Things One through Three sometime? And, if you already have a will, please give the fishing gear to Ben. I'm good.