Warning – The first part of this post is full of fun pictures of my kids {mostly taken by my mom} showing what they were doing while we were busy with other life stuff.

So, what were we doing while our kids were taking baths and snuggling other babies?  I haven’t talked much about it but our family has experienced a tremendous amount of loss in the past year.  In addition to the loss of our four legged companion, we have also lost several family members.  This past weekend, we said our final goodbyes to Mathlete’s uncle.  The memorial service was beautiful and it was wonderful to hear people from all throughout his life share their memories.
We miss each and every one of our family members that have passed so dearly.  However, knowing that everything happens for a reason (yes, everything!), we’ve tried to use their passing to help teach us some life lessons.
The biggest one is that everyone needs an attorney.  You didn’t expect me to say that, did you?  You see, each person our family has lost this year had a different plan for when they passed.  Some, like Mathlete’s uncle had a fairly well developed plain including a will and advanced directives.  Others had no plan at all.  Seeing how these plans really affect the people who are left to take care of arrangements after someone’s passing really impacted us.

[Hickman Menashe]

Recently, I got a mailing from an attorney in Louisiana.  Now, I don’t live in Louisiana so it didn’t make much sense to me.  But, in light of all the other things going on in our lives, it did get me to thinking about our need for an attorney.  I even went as far as to do some research on attorneys in our area.  Why?
1)  Writing a will.  I now know exactly how important a will is and how important it is now to wait.  Unfortunately, you just never know what can happen in life.  I don’t want our children to have to deal with any legal messes if something were to happen to one or both of us.

2)  Help with advanced directives.  I am sure you’ve seen news cases in the past where family members can’t come to an agreement on someone’s care.  These kinds of directives, if legally sound, can help avoid all of those issues.

3)  Help with estate planning.  This sort of goes hand in hand with the will but looks a little deeper at the tax implications and other potential legal issues your will could cause.

So, our to-do list just got a little longer because we’ve added a meeting with an attorney to develop life plans to it.  That item probably moved a little higher on the priority list too because of how important those items are!