However good your prognosis, your cancer still represents – at best – a major scare in your life. However matter-of-fact and sensible we are, none of us cares to acknowledge our own mortality, but some circumstances do push us into considering whether our practical and financial affairs are in reasonable order.
Making a will
If you have not already made a will, then even if your prognosis is good, you may feel that this is a task you should put off no longer. You may still find the resolution to do so easier than actually tackling the task – but it is a very worthwhile exercise. It is often mistakenly believed that if your affairs are relatively simple then your assets will automatically pass to your wife or partner or children. This is not necessarily the case, and it is much better if you set down your wishes in writing. Not only does it make the task of administering your estate much more straightforward for your executors but it also gives you the opportunity to express any wishes you may have about bequests. A will does not have to be a complicated document. You can ask a solicitor to help you draw it up, or you may prefer to do it yourself from a ready-made ‘kit’ which you can obtain from stationers, or to use a book on the subject to devise your own will from scratch. The Which? Guide to Wills and Probate edited by the Consumers’ Association is very useful. The New Natural Death Handbook also contains a good section of general guidance on wills. It may still be a good idea to ask a solicitor to check your will to ensure it is valid, unambiguous and would be legally acceptable.
Once your will is drawn up, you can forget about it (unless anything occurs in your life which necessitates changes). It is an important task dealt with.
We had made our wills in an unusual burst of good sense while in our mid-20s, largely because I was in the process of setting up my business and we were not then married. They were very simple, and we typed them ourselves using a library book on wills and probate. When we received the news that my prognosis was looking much worse, we had another burst of sorting out our affairs and my partner (we were married five days later) made a panicky phone call to our local solicitor who kindly looked over our wills the same day and checked that they were ‘legal’ and contained no ambiguities. We hadn’t realized that although they were basically fine as they stood, they would have become invalid after our marriage and were redrafted to take account of this. This was another item crossed off the list. We did not enjoy the process because of the implications, but it somehow felt like a small matter over which we still had some control and which we could sort out ourselves, and that is very important when it seems that everything else is running away from you.
You might also be spurred on to check that your financial and legal documents are accessible and reasonably well-organized. Again this is not an easy task to contemplate, and you may feel it is simply too much for you, or that somehow it is ‘tempting fate’. If you can’t manage it, fine – some people can and others can’t. At first it may seem too overwhelming a task or you may feel that you need time to build up to it, but ensuring that your affairs are in good order can both relieve a potential source of worry and contribute to a sense of control on your part.
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