Last Will and Estimate

A WILL IS an important document that protects your family and ensures financial security for children who have yet to pay back the 300 grand you spent on each of them growing up. You definitely should not wait until you’re 73 to write one. In my case, I was waiting for the wisdom that comes with age. Failing that, I was also waiting for the lawyer we chose to grow up and go to law school. Because, when we first met him, I thought he was a teenager.

It’s like when I go to the doctor these days and she looks like she’s just been dropped off at soccer practice by her mom. Nothing like the white-haired doctor who used to frighten me with dire predictions of the health problems that every aging man confronts. But now that all those predictions have come true for me, I need to make my will.

My wife and I have never had an attorney, an unusual status for residents of Washington, D.C., the most lawyer-strewn city in the country. You can’t throw a rock in this town without hitting a lawyer, although that’s generally who most people are aiming at. So, to make sure we engaged the very best, we chose ours through the rigorous scientific process of Googling, then choosing the one with the best hair and the most trustworthy smile. A smile that the lawyer used — somewhat condescendingly — when I mentioned this would be our second will, after the first one we got off the internet. (We used KindOfALawyer.com, if memory serves. Or maybe it was Rocket Mortgage.) Regardless, the lawyer told us this new document would be more legally sound, with the added advantage of earning him $2,500. (He waited until the end to tell us that because who doesn’t enjoy a surprise?)

It’s important to get the wording of a will just right. Since we’ve both only recently retired, we’ve yet to spend down any of our long-term investments. In other words, right now we’re worth more to our daughters in a deceased state, one which we’d like to postpone as long as possible. Not that they are rushing the inevitable; it’s just an innocent coincidence that they’re putting their names on the furniture. And when that sad day comes, I trust they will grieve appropriately at the funeral and, because of their sensitive natures, not have their new luxury cars delivered until the next day.

There are four components to end-of-life documents: The will itself, the medical directive, the power of attorney, and something else that I should have paid attention to, but after a while, a lawyer can be just SO boring. It’s all written down somewhere if I need to double-check that the cat is not mentioned. (You hear that, Kitty? YOU GET NOTHING!)

You also decide how you want to manage your remains, a word which to me has always begged the question: Remains of what? The parts I didn’t use up? Will there be things left over? But the lawyer was talking about burial and that was an easy one. I want to be cremated and my ashes strewn in the lobby of the Federalist Society. On a weekday. They’ll have to use the back door when heading out to undermine democracy.

Speaking of cremation, how come there’s no discount cremation? Is there such a thing? Can you save money with a shorter cremation process or a lower temperature? (Funeral director: “Here is the urn containing the remains of your loved one. I’m so sorry for your loss...DON’T OPEN THAT!”)

Forget I mentioned it.