Philosophical Monday: It’s Time to Make a Will

No pictures, please! OR It took me FOUR whole hours before I fell asleep OR What do you mean I suck my thumb weird?

So this Wednesday, CH and I are meeting with a lawyer to draw up a will. A will is suggested for everyone, and once you get married, the gentle suggestion becomes a little firmer. But once you bring children into the equation, well then you start pressuring yourself.

Usually, I love planning for a worse-case scenario. It makes me happy to think of the survival kit we have in our garage. The only thing that allowed me to put my novel out there was promising myself that I would self-publish if I couldn’t find an agent or a publishing company. In fact, I often say that it’s not the important decisions that people fear, it’s dealing with the repercussions of those decisions.

For example when I decided to move to Los Angeles, I decided that if I didn’t find a job as a writer within two years, then I would move to a cheaper city. That so didn’t work out. Not only did I not make it within my prescribed period, but my plans to move were (thankfully) interrupted by going out with CH. Still, when I was a poor grad student, contemplating a move to Los Angeles, it made me feel better to have a Plan B.

So you’d think I’d be all over making a will. Well, not really. Having lost my mother at 19, I realize that there is no worst-case scenario that will help a child completely get over the death of one or both of her parents. And though we can make sure that she has some financial stability and the best care possible if she is forced to grow up without us, my mind shuts down with such sadness whenever I try to imagine Betty not having either of us there at her college graduation or her wedding or if and when she has children. If she decides to name her first child after me as we decided to name our first child after my mother, I want to be there to thank her for the honor.

And I have been dreading this will appointment ever since we got our act together and made it.

But as always, the more you fear doing something, the more you should probably go’on ahead and do it. So we’ll do the responsible thing and make sure that Betty is taken care of physically and financially in case of our early deaths.

Then I’ll hope every day of my life that she’ll never have to take advantage of said will until she’s old and gray (underneath her probably dyed hair) and ready to let us go.