An estate planner’s office can feel a lot like it’s all about the logistics of death: who gets what and how, who gets to make decisions, where things are kept, etc. But at our office, we know that every estate plan is also about a personal or a family story, and we encourage our clients to include those stories with the other things they leave behind. Elderly people have so much life experience and wisdom to share (even if they don’t always consider it wisdom themselves), and most children or grandchildren—although they may not know how to ask—want to hear those stories.
Now there’s a book that helps teach you how to ask, and with the stories it contains helps the elderly learn how to share. It also teaches us just how valuable the wisdom of the elderly is, and how fun it can be to grow old gracefully. The book is How to Live: A Search for Wisdom from Old People (While They Are Still on This Earth) by Henry Alford. In it, Alford tells the story of his own search for wisdom and the interviews he conducted trying to find it; along the way he relates the sometimes funny, sometimes touching, but always enlightening stories of the elderly people he interviewed. Alford’s book is entertaining, but a reading of it will also teach you the tools you need to interview the elderly people in your own life.
When you sit down to create your estate plan, think not only about how to pass on your assets, but also how to pass on your unique family stories and wisdom. After all, the silver may go back to your great-great grandmother, but the story behind it is what makes it such a valuable family heirloom.