FREE NEWSLETTER
WHAT WILL BE YOUR legacy? This is something I’ve given a lot of thought to—right down to the funeral instructions.
Something I’ve learned through hard experience: One of the greatest gifts we can give to our families is a well-organized and well-communicated estate plan. They’ll appreciate it when the time comes.
Too many of us wait until an emergency to try to get our affairs in order. A severe illness or death is stressful enough. We shouldn’t compound it by failing to have the right documents in place. A good estate plan can take many forms. At a minimum, it should include:
It’s never too early to work on these. A letter of last instruction should be kept up to date with key details, including financial information, location of important documents, and funeral instructions. None of us wants to think about our funeral, but it helps those left behind to know what we wanted.
I’ve been thinking about an aspect of funeral planning that gets little attention. Do we want to make it easy for friends and family to visit our final resting place? This is a very personal choice. As families move and become more spread out, picking the right location gets harder.
My wife and I have an annual tradition with one of her older brothers and his wife. A few weeks before Christmas, we take a day and visit three cemeteries in the Philadelphia suburbs where a host of family members are buried, including my wife’s parents and grandparents, and my parents and grandparents. We leave a floral arrangement on each grave. When we’re done, we go somewhere festive for lunch, and talk about family and the upcoming holidays.
Others have different traditions. I have a friend who’s an only child. He grew up in Florida, where his parents are now buried. He spent most of his adult life in the Philadelphia suburbs. Each year, he makes a solitary trip to Florida to visit his parents’ gravesite. He told me he felt someone should visit them at least once a year.
When we lived in Pennsylvania, we were about 15 minutes’ drive from my parents’ and grandparents’ graves. We used to stop by a few times each year, around Christmas, on birthdays or on Mother’s Day. Since moving last year to Monmouth County, New Jersey, it’s harder to get there, but we’ll make sure we keep up our Christmas tradition.
In the wake of our recent move, I need to work on our estate plan. We should update our wills and powers of attorney. Our letter of last instruction is also out of date.
I’ve been very open about my funeral wishes. I want a modern version of a Viking funeral. All my family and friends will gather at my favorite beach in my favorite South Jersey beach town. I will be laid out in an old-fashioned wooden lifeguard boat. The boat will get pushed out past the breakers, and then my grandsons will shoot flaming arrows into the boat. After the funeral pyre burns down, they’ll all go to one of our favorite hangouts to celebrate. I recommend doing it after Labor Day, when the crowds are smaller.
Truth be told, it’s not clear such funerals were common among the Vikings. It’s also not clear whether any of this is legal in New Jersey.
Maybe I need to do a little more research.
Richard Connor is a semi-retired aerospace engineer with a keen interest in finance. He enjoys a wide variety of other interests, including chasing grandkids, space, sports, travel, winemaking and reading. Follow Rick on Twitter @RConnor609 and check out his earlier articles.
Want to receive our weekly newsletter? Sign up now. How about our daily alert about the site's latest posts? Join the list.
My husband’s family has some plots at a cemetery in Palo Alto, CA (Bay Area near Stanford). His uncle, grandparents, and aunt are buried there. His mom and stepdad already have plots purchased there. I’ve been to three different family funerals at that facility, each followed by a reception at the same Sheraton nearby. No one in the family lives in the Bay Area anymore, though.
EDITED TO ADD: People did live in that part of the Bay Area when the first of those family members passed. But no one has lived nearby since 2007.
I’ve thought about when my mother-in-law and her husband pass (they’re in their 80s now). They live in Southern California, so transporting them to Palo Alto’s going to be a thing. I’m not sure which family members would be alive and/or willing to travel to this location where no one in the family lives for a ceremony. Yet those are their wishes, and my husband is their executor, so he’ll get to make all this happen. Once it does, though, there will be no one to visit, either.
My family has no such history. When my dad passed at 61, he was cremated and his ashes scattered from a boat in the San Francisco Bay. It was a windy day in spring, and…well, let’s just say that bay cruise was the stuff nightmares are made of. I’m thankful that I didn’t bring my two kids, who were still pretty young, on that excursion. It definitely made me motivated not to insist that my loved ones have to scatter me anywhere in particular once I’m gone.
I find myself quite uninterested in this question. Every time I get a postcard from the local funeral home asking if I’d like an appointment, I shrug and think, “I don’t care. I’ll be dead. What’s the least amount of trouble and expense for my family?”
Dr Ledty, thanks for reading and sharing. I feel for your husband handling difficult estate and burial challenges as week as he loss of a parent.
I like the idea! I’m Scandanavian too. Read the “Viking Heart.”