Long-estranged sibling just passed away...

[Bird]

[My folks had a pretty straight forward will. Dad dies, mom gets everything. Mom dies, dad gets everything. Both die, 5 kids split it 5 ways.

My wife and I have wills to do the same thing. I don't know about other states, but we were told that if we did a joint will, when one died the other could never change that will; i.e., the joint will required both signatures to change anything. So we have separate wills that are "almost" identical.

 

[Turbys_1700]

Yeah, my dad had a DNR order, too. The DR. asked him about it and he said no, he wanted to be revived. He had things to do and planned to use the DNR in his 90's; he was only 76. So, he died, the DR revived him and asked him about the DNR again. He said NO again. Few days later, heart stopped again. Dr. asked him again. Nope. Third time (not counting the time they had to shock him to get his rhythm in sync between death 2&3), he looked at me and said he had enough. Dr. said they'd load him up with morphine and he'd never wake up. Sent him back to the nursing home. Late that night, I'm sitting in his room, talking to one of my siblings on the phone, telling her he'd never wake up again. I look over and he's waving at me and says "I'm not dead yet!" and smiled. He was a huge Monty Python fan. :laughing: He talked to my sibling and went to sleep. He never woke up and passed the next morning.

It'll get better oldpilgrim. Just focus on the good thoughts and it'll come around. Don't set a timeline for it. Everyone's different.

My dad recovered a couple months ago from congestive heart failure. He was in the hospital 2-1/2 weeks and rehab 2 weeks. I was facing the same situation that you were in but he pulled through. I am the executor of the estate and have power of attorney. Dad has a DNR in his will also. I had to go over this with mom and my sister. I told them that another friend of ours had the same situation and that he told his daughter one time to resuscitate. If my dad was unconscious this was what we had agreed to. We have advanced medicine to the point where we have to make decisions that we are not best equipped to make. A hundred years ago we would have just died and been done with it.

 

[Bird]

My wife and I have the DNR in our wills, and hope it'll be enforced by our daughters.

 

[dmccarty]

My wife and I have the DNR in our wills, and hope it'll be enforced by our daughters.

My father in law had a heart attack about 18 months ago and had been doing ok. We saw him about three months ago and he had lost quite a bit of weight the hard way. :shocked: He looked pretty danged good but he would tire very easily since he had very little heart function left. He went downhill over the last few months and his quality of life did not have much quality. My wifey visited on Saturday to see how he was doing and to get legal papers signed including DNR.

Yesterday, she went back so that she could be with her father, mother, and sister at the doctors office. We had lots of questions about health issues and we were trying to figure out if her father and mother could stay home alone with care or did they need to go to a home. While listening to the nurse talk about what needed to be done, my FIL died. Head went down and that was that. They got his wife out of the room and they were about to start to resuscitate when sister in law pulled out the DNR that was signed on Saturday. It was what he wanted and it was what was done.

I am glad he did not die at home with only wife alone to deal with the situation until help could arrive. Not sure if was good for the rest of the family to see him die but at least he did not die alone and his suffering is ended...

He wanted to be cremated but his wife wants a bigger funeral for which there is no money and not what he wanted. He had a life insurance policy to pay for cremation and that is what he will get. He did not want to waste money on a big expensive funeral and he got the insurance policy to pay for what he wanted. He was a good man, who lived a good, long life but he did not live long enough...

Wifey is holding together pretty well but I don't think it has really hit her yet...

Later,
Dan

 

[turnkey4099]

My wife and I have the DNR in our wills, and hope it'll be enforced by our daughters.

DNR in a will does not accomplish anything at the time of emergency. The responders won't know about it. There is a form "POLST" "Physicians Order for Life Sustaining Treatmen". It is meant to be posted on the refrigerator door and taken with the patient to the hospital. It is filled out by the patient in the presences of a physisian and is signed by both you and the doctor.

That is no gaurantee either. I had to call 911 and be taken to the ER middle of the night last week for a suspected stroke (turned out to be a TIA with no residual effects). Had I not TOLD the crew to grab it on the way none of them would have even looked for it.

Wife lucked out on that. Had an aneurism, was DNR on the records but noone could find it. They choppered her 60 miles and she flat lined twice on the way there. Survived another 6 years so we were fortunate. She never said what her opionion was, lived most of those years in/out of er and rehab, bedridden.

 

[TemporaryKubotaOwnerMark]

What they said, no responsibility legally or morally.

I've left directions for no service, visitation, nothing, just cremation and spread my ashes around the farms if so inclined.

Tain't ashes. It's ground up bones. Takes waaaaay to much energy to burn bones, and you just wind up with lime anyway.




No service is hard on those left behind. I don't know where this crazy "no service" fad got started, but it's a selfish one.

 

[MossRoad]

Tain't ashes. It's ground up bones. Takes waaaaay to much energy to burn bones, and you just wind up with lime anyway.




No service is hard on those left behind. I don't know where this crazy "no service" fad got started, but it's a selfish one.

In our family, "No Service" means "Big Party", which we like better!

 

[TemporaryKubotaOwnerMark]

In our family, "No Service" means "Big Party", which we like better!

That's the thing - get together and remember the good times, remember the person. "Service" doesn't have to mean a formal church burial or something done at a funeral home.

 

[crabjoe]

If you're going to lend money to family and/or friends, you need to think of it as a gift. If not ... we you know...

As for obligation, you don't have any, but because it's family, I feel that you should help your niece and nephew to make sure she has a proper, respectful burial. It's just the right thing to do....

If I didn't make an effort to try and help one of my family members at a time of death, not matter how well got along in life ... Oh Lord, my Grandmother would be looking down on me in shame..

BTW, I did not find this out until my Grandmother passed, but she was the one person in our family that made sure everyone got the help they needed. Relatives .. and I'm talking distant and older ... I never knew of popped up from everywhere to say how she had help them in a time of need and never expected anything in return. All I knew, growing up, was that she was my Grandmother.