Estate Planning = Family Fun

Talking about money brings out the best in people

When Dad retired last year, no one in the family knew what to expect, least of all Dad. After working for close to 45 years as an optician in central New Jersey, Dad had decided to, as he put it, “keep things open.”

“I’ve been a doctor all my life,” he said, “and now I don’t want to make any plans for awhile.” He sounded glum. He seemed to want to convey a Woody Guthrie-like espirit, a real Mark Twain point of view—”Let’s light for the territories,” but instead I heard Lee J. Cobb as Willy Loman.

I knew why.

It was impossible to picture Dad behind the wheel of a large recreational vehicle, tooling down the highway. Mom at his side in skin-tight khakis, a button-down white blouse, and a red bandanna.

Not at all.

No, it wasn’t long before Dad took retirement as permission to let it all hang out. He began to shave every two or three days rather than each morning. Gone was the Brylcreem and Old Spice I remembered smelling on him as a child. Clean clothes? Things of the past! Dad put on his maroon leisure suit and wore it for weeks.

And if Mom or anyone else suggested cautiously that Dad brush his hair or change his shirt, the old fire came back to his voice.

“Don’t you dare tell me how to dress! I look fine. I worked all my life and now I’m going to relax.”

Most of the time he now spent with Mom consisted of watching TV, which he had rarely done before, and going to lectures on a small variety of topics. When we spoke on the phone, he told me eagerly about talks he had heard on children hidden in attics and, my favorite, Jews in Space, which was about prominent Jewish-Americans involved in NASA.

It got harder for us to find things to talk about.

The one thing that Dad returned to, again and again, was what he called his Legacy.

“My money is my legacy,” he would say to me.

“No,” I countered, “your grandchildren are your legacy.”

But I’m no saint and I could see what he was talking about. We’re not talking vast sums here, but I knew that without estate planning all the money would be eaten up in inheritance tax.

Yet, each time I’d try to bring the subject up—suggesting that Dad, Mom, my sister, and me sit down and discuss the estate—he would flip out.

“Don’t you dare tell me what to do with my money! It’s my money and I’ll decide to do with it!”

Mom espoused the Party line. It’s can’t be fun to be the wife of Willy Loman. As long as Dad’s anger wasn’t directed at her, she wasn’t about to interfere.

As for my brother: He’s like Vichy France when it comes to Mom and Dad: un collabateur.

“Oh, no,” he will say, sounding uncannily like Marshall Petain, “Dad is right! We must preserve our freedom while making a suitable accommodation in order not to provoke further action.”

Meanwhile, the estate goes unplanned. Some days I feel like I’m standing in Chekhov’s Cherry Orchard, the rumble of machines coming to cut down the fruit trees.

But could it be the IRS and their inheritance tax division trucks on the horizon?