Beth hadn’t felt so alone since long ago when she was a senior in college and unattached. She had returned home from college, though, to promptly meet, fall in love with, and marry her husband. Now, more than fifty-five years later, he had just passed away. Fortunately, Beth and her husband had some time to plan for his passing, as hard as that was. Beth couldn’t imagine how much harder losing him all at once would have been.
Passing
When spouses marry, they aren’t thinking of the day, better long away, when one of them will pass away, leaving the other alone for a time. The passing of a spouse is an epochal family event, especially when occurring late in life in the natural course of things. Family structure and relationships fundamentally change with the passing of the first spouse late in life. Indeed, the family of those spouses ends. After the first spouse’s passing, the surviving spouse becomes an appendage to the next-generation family, the spouse’s own family having passed with the first spouse’s demise. A family should thus give special attention to the passing of a patriarch or matriarch spouse, in recognition of its end. A family can and should prepare for that end.
Legacy
The family that prepares for the first spouse’s passing both eases the transition, not that the transition is or should be easy, and marks its legacy. Spouses had much to do when knitting their lives together in marriage. They may have even more to do, or to leave to others to do, to bring their marriage and life together to its fitting end. The more time and commitment spouses have to prepare for passing in an orderly, wise, and sensitive fashion, the better legacy their marriage and family may have. The passing of a patriarch or matriarch not only ends a family but can also upset, divide, and harm next-generation families if the spouses fail to give due attention to important matters. The rest of this chapter addresses those matters. Give due attention to your passing, and you can put an exclamation mark to a good family life.
Estate
In the law’s eyes, the passing of a spouse leaves an estate, which is the legal construct holding the interests of the spouse who passed away. The deceased spouse’s property passes into the estate unless jointly owned with the surviving spouse or deliberately disposed of outside the estate. Life insurance would be an example. If the deceased spouse had designated the surviving spouse, an adult child, or someone else living as a beneficiary on the life-insurance policy, the proceeds would pass directly to that person, outside the estate. A deceased spouse may also have designated the surviving spouse or an adult child as the beneficiary of a retirement account. Spouses also typically hold the marital home, likely hold checking, savings, and brokerage accounts, and effectively hold much personal property jointly, so that the surviving spouse retains the deceased spouse’s interest in personal property. Otherwise, the deceased spouse’s interests go into the estate for disposition. Ensure that you and your spouse have properly designated beneficiaries and secondary beneficiaries on life insurances and bank and brokerage accounts. Get the advice of a qualified estate-planning attorney regarding adding adult children to real-property titles or taking other measures to pass property outside of your estate.
Wills
Property distributes from a decedent’s estate according to the decedent’s will, if the decedent executed a will. Thus, spouses should execute wills well before their anticipated demise, insofar as we don’t know the moment of our demise, so that they control the disposition of their estates. Otherwise, property in the estate, after payment of the decedent’s liabilities and estate administration expenses, passes according to state laws of intestacy. Those laws, varying from state to state, generally pass property first to a surviving spouse or the spouse and children in equal proportions, and if none have survived, then to other blood relatives. If you and your spouse have no living heirs, then your property passes to the state. Intestate distribution may not at all align with the preferences you and your spouse have for the disposition of your property. Intestate distribution also generally increases estate expenses and delays distribution, and may inject uncertainties into the process. You, your spouse, and your children or other family members are generally far better off when you execute a will. A will not only provides for property distribution but can also recommend a guardian for any minor children. A will also appoints the estate’s personal representative, often the surviving spouse or a trusted adult child, to manage estate administration. See the guide Help with Your Legacy for more details.
Heirs
You and your spouse may have important and sensitive decisions to make over the heirs your wills designate. The first spouse to pass may leave everything to the surviving spouse. Indeed, because you don’t necessarily know which spouse will necessarily pass first, both spouses’ wills may pass everything to the other spouse, naming successor beneficiaries in the event the other spouse passes first. Spouses often then leave everything divided equally among children. If they have no children or none survive, siblings, nieces and nephews, or other blood relatives may be their beneficiaries. Testators may also designate their church, charities, close family friends, or whomever else they wish to honor or support with a bequest. But you and your spouse decide. Your children may have different needs or different capacities to benefit from a bequest. Giving loads of cash to a child with a gambling or drug addiction, for instance, may not help anyone. And you and your spouse may have different relationships with your children. You may also wish to honor grandchildren and your church and favorite charities. You and your spouse be the judge. Execute wills when you have the mental competency and good judgment to do so. And make an estate plan that honors your family legacy. Sharing a copy of your will with the adult child or other trusted individual whom your will names as personal representative of your estate can help ensure orderly administration.
Trust
You and your spouse may also or alternatively place assets in trust. If, for instance, you have minor children or minor grandchildren whom you wish to bequeath property, you may designate those bequests in trust, managed by a responsible adult individual. Spouses with greater wealth than children need or would benefit from receiving all at once may choose to place everything in a family trust, naming children, grandchildren, and future unborn progeny as beneficiaries of the trust. A professional trust manager would then periodically pay out funds to the beneficiaries for as long as funds last or manage the trust principal to last in perpetuity for continual payouts for as long as the family line lasts. A trust enables you and your spouse to manage your marital wealth for everyone’s benefit, leaving a generous family legacy. Consider a family trust if you and your spouse have substantial wealth to leave to support future family generations.
Charity
You and your spouse may also leave a family legacy through charitable bequests. Your wills may designate one-time gifts to any charitable, religious, arts, educational, advocacy, or other organization or cause you choose. You and your spouse may, for instance, have especially close ties with your church, private grade school, or college or university, or organizations that served your children well. If you and your spouse wish to give to charitable organizations but spread the giving out over time, you may wish to form a family foundation, led by you and your spouse, and then by an adult child or professional director after your passing, to grant funds over time. Your foundation may even operate in perpetuity if its funds are substantial enough to preserve the principal and grant earnings and appreciation. Consider a family foundation if you and your spouse have substantial wealth to leave, to support charitable organizations well into the future.
Funeral
Managing your family wealth wisely in the course of your passing can greatly aid your surviving family members and leave a wise and generous legacy. Yet you and your spouse can also help one another and help your surviving family members by making funeral arrangements. You do not need to do so if you are not up to the task. Your surviving family members can manage funeral planning. But some advance preparation can help. You and your spouse may, for instance, wish to secure a family cemetery plot or ensure that your remains go into an established family cemetery plot. You and your spouse may also want to select a grave marker honoring one another, your marriage and children, and other commitments. You and your spouse also have the option of requesting burial or cremation, requesting military honors if either of you were service members, and asking that a certain pastor, family member, or close friend speak at a memorial. As a last illness progresses, the surviving spouse or an adult child may also help the family through the passing by making arrangements with the pastor and church holding the memorial and the funeral home handling the remains and any graveside service. Make the plans that you wish to appropriately honor your marriage and family. Involving an adult child or children in plans can help them manage affairs, too.
Memorial
When a family patriarch or matriarch passes, the church or funeral home memorial can be an especially important event to confirm the family’s legacy and help surviving family members mourn, remember, and adjust. The surviving spouse, aided by an adult child or children, has an opportunity to guide the pastor or funeral home director arranging the memorial in the choice of music, photographic or video displays, seating arrangements, prayers, scriptures, and speakers, including who will give the eulogy. A sensitively arranged memorial can honor not only the decedent but also the decedent’s marital and parental relationships, and other relationships and commitments. The family members planning the memorial do well to think of each family member, friend, or other individual, and each community including school, workplace, recreational, and faith communities, affected by the passing, and to recognize the relationship. A sensitive memorial can be a huge aid for remembering, honoring, and adjusting, and a spectacular end to a good family life.
Celebration
A memorial can also be a celebration. While the passing of a patriarch or matriarch can be very difficult, causing profound grief and requiring long mourning, the passing of a faithful Christian individual into God’s presence to experience his glory eternally is also cause for celebration. That passing can also be a reminder to surviving family members to affirm their own faith in order to receive the same eternal blessing. Such an individual’s passing is also cause to celebrate the individual’s life, marriage, and family. Living one’s whole life in anticipation of that celebration can be a good principle. Conducting your marriage and family life with that end in mind can also make for the richest family legacy.
Reflection
Have you and your spouse executed wills? Do your wills still reflect your best estate plans, or do they need updating? Have you designated the best personal representative? Has your personal representative agreed to serve, and does your personal representative have a copy of your will? Have you made the best distribution of your assets? Have your assets changed significantly since you made out your will, in a way that would suggest its need for amendment? Are the family members or other individuals to whom your will makes bequests competent to receive and manage the funds, or would the funds be better placed in trust for management? What funeral plans, if any, have you and your spouse made? What plans would help your surviving family members, especially your spouse, manage the passing? Does your family already have a cemetery plot in which you would prefer your remains interred? Have you chosen burial or cremation? Do you have preferences for a grave marker? Would ordering the marker now help your family and ensure the appropriate interment of your remains and your spouse’s remains? Do you and your spouse have preferences for your memorials, including music, prayer, scripture, speakers, or eulogy, to honor one another, your family members, friends, and other commitments, and to leave your best family legacy?
Key Points
Spouses can plan meaningfully together for their passing away.
Planning for passing can confirm and extend a family legacy.
The assets of a deceased spouse go into an estate for distribution.
You and your spouse guide distribution of assets through your wills.
Choose your family heirs wisely, sensitive to their needs and capacity.
Place assets in trust for minor or incompetent family members.
Make bequests to church, school, and charity as most beneficial.
Planning cemetery plot and interment can help manage passing.
Plan memorials sensitively to honor the decedent and relationships.
Celebrate the decedent’s life, relationships, and legacy in memorial.
Read Chapter 20.