My dad sent me his estate document before I was ready to face it. I was glad he had when he died unexpectedly months later.

"When an email from my dad with the subject line " Estate Info" popped into my mailbox, I cringed. My parents have been transparent about their estate planning for a long time - perhaps partially because when I was in my 20s, my younger brother died unexpectedly, and I became their only surviving child. When I was in my 30s and starting a family of my own, my parents even invited me to a planning meeting with their estate attorney."

"My dad comes by this pragmatic approach honestly. His parents, my grandparents, once invited their adult children over to choose which pieces of artwork they'd like when my grandparents died. A morbid spin on an art show, perhaps, but my grandparents felt strongly that allowing their children to participate in choosing their inheritance would make future life a smidge smoother."

"So in 2019, when my dad sent me that email entitled "Estate info", I didn't welcome the email with open arms, but it also wasn't out of the blue. My dad was 74 and seemingly healthy at the time, and since his parents had lived to be 89 and 94, I figured I'd tuck the info away until some blurry future day when I needed it. Which I did end up needing."

"My dad died on Father's Day In an unfun twist of fate, the day after my dad died happened to be Father's Day. Instead of celebrating him and my husband over brunch, I was 3,000 miles away from my husband and kids, living out of a suitcase, revisiting the brutal physicality of grief, the way it feels like something had been ripped out of my chest."

My parents maintained transparent estate planning after the unexpected death of a younger sibling. The father emailed an "Estate Info" file in 2019 that felt uncomfortable but proved essential later. The father died ten days after a cancer diagnosis, coinciding with Father's Day, leaving family to manage sudden logistics. Grandparents had previously allowed children to choose artwork as inheritance, encouraging pragmatic, participatory distribution. The father's approach to inheritance and a consolidated "when I die" document provided critical information and reduced administrative burdens, while the daughter coped with intense grief far from family.

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