Powers of Attorney, Wills, etc.

Decisions regarding powers of attorney, wills, illness, death, etc. can be very uncomfortable but it does not need to be impossible.

My husband and I bought our house a long time ago. I was 25 and he was 30. We were many years away from having to have the need to all of the above or were we. Hopefully we would not really need any of the above but it was a perfect time to take care of those legal decisions while we were young and less stressed. We had our wills made so we were done (for the time being).

After our son was born, we need to update our wills to provide for his future well being. We designated a legal guardian, if needed, and appointed an executor. Okay now we were really done, right? Wrong.

As our parents got older we realized that we all need to update our wills and add additional legal documents. We started with the parents. While they were still in somewhat reasonable health we talked about powers of attorney to handle not only financial needs/obligations but healthcare in the event they were not able to handle things themselves. This got us all to think about our futures and what we wanted for ourselves. This made it less uncomfortable because we all were talking about having the same legal documents prepared regardless of our ages.

So we all did the following: Updated our wills which included appointing executors and alternate executors. Having general power of attorney documents drawn, also with alternates. DNR and Living Wills - the DNR is DO NOT RESUSCITATE is important because when it is needed you are not able to speak for yourself. The Living Will also lets you make decisions about your healthcare should you not be able to speak. Do you want to be on life support? Do you want a feeding tube?......etc. Healthcare Power of Attorney - I am not sure if all States or hospitals require this document but we needed it when decisions needed to be made of behalf of our parents health care. Now (at least we hope) all of the necessary documents have been prepared. One more things - some States also require that some documents be recorded through a local Deed of Records Office.

The next step was to make sure that each power of attorney appointee was aware of where the original and copies are located and any and all necessary files, keys, names/addresses/phone numbers of important contacts, etc.

Wishes were made known and documented.

Believe me - this made some otherwise (well, actually still difficult) difficult decisions easier when the time arose. When my parents were very sick, I knew their wishes. When they were dying, I knew their wishes. Stating them to the doctors was still hard but knowing that this is what they wanted was comforting.

Do not delay these discussions - have them as soon as possible and get them legally documented.