If you think it isn’t going to happen to you, and you are putting off getting your affairs in order, Ted Stokes, the managing member of Stokes Law, would like to tell you a short story.
There was once a man married to a beautiful 25 year-old girl and they had already had three good looking but rambunctious little boys. The girl was a hard worker and a great mother but didn’t have an education past high school. The man was also a really hard worker with a steady job. However, one day, the man was killed in car accident. He had no will, no trust, no estate plan whatsoever. He hadn’t planned for his death. To make matters worse, the man had some life insurance, but the girl was not the named beneficiary. The girl was stubbornly independent and never remarried, after all, who would want to deal with her three “rambunctious” boys! She worked countless hours always providing for her boys. They ended up pretty good in the end, one is a successful small business owner, the other a CPA, and the youngest is a lawyer.
You may have already guessed that the “girl” in the story is my mom. Because I had a great mom who sacrificed so much for me, I didn’t suffer for my dad’s careless estate blunder. But, looking back, it was my mom who endured the brunt of it. She was strong willed and would cry in the closet and then put on a face of resilience in front of us. However, much of her heartache could have been reduced had my dad taken just a few hours to prepare. I beg you not to leave your family in a similar situation.