Facing Death (Sort Of)

A JAG lawyer paid our base a visit this week. Oliver and I decided it was high time we faced up to something we've been talking about for years, but never had done: our wills. Clearly, talking about anyone's death is unpleasant, especially your own, but now that we have kids, I felt great pressure to take care of it. It terrifies me that someday we might both die in some freak accident and they will be left wards of the State until the State decides which of our relatives they should go live with. I don't lose a lot of sleep at night over this, but it does worry me, as I think it should anyone who has a child.

Obviously, we'd prefer to raise our own boys to manhood. It's a great privilege to do so, and I hope these wills languish in quiet solitude while we do so. However, if the worse were to happen, I feel much better knowing they will be entrusted to people that not only love them, but will raise them in a similar manner to how we would have. That's a huge thing. I know that for us, we have family members that we absolutely do not want our kids being raised by. For some of them, it's a safety issue, but others it's just because their values are not in line with ours, not because they aren't doing a fine job with their own kids.

We actually skipped over most of the will paperwork because we don't care much what happens to our "stuff". It's the guardianship issues that we talked the most about. We are lucky enough to have family that we feel very comfortable asking to be named as guardians in our wills, and we are also, thankfully, in firm agreement over it. Obviously, it will have to be revisited as the years go on, but for now, I feel comfortable with what we've decided.

The one piece of advice I'd recommend if you have yet to do this is to clearly ask the people you want to have take your kids. Ever see Raising Helen? While I loved the movie, it isn't exactly what I'd like to see happen if we kick the bucket.