I have a confession to make, I have been an advocate of the High Court for more than 25 years and a certified estate planner for almost 10 years. I have advised countless people on the benefits of having a will, but it is only recently that I finished mine! I am ashamed to say, I procrastinated for years about this and my will was in draft format for almost a decade. So, I’ve been asking myself…why? The simple explanation is that I was afraid to face my mortality.
Facing my mortality has made me more empathetic to the way my clients feel when they come to me to make a will or to plan their estates for succession. We, lawyers, are trained to handle the technical aspects of these tasks, but no one prepares you to be counsel to a person who is facing their mortality and all the emotional upheaval that comes with it.
Early in my career, fresh out of law school, I decided to prepare a family trust for my dad, without telling him. I wanted to surprise him with my initiative. I was in my 20s then and at that age, you think you will live forever so I had no concept of what forcing a man (then in his late 50s) to confront his mortality would do to him. It did not go well, but it planted a seed in me. I wanted to understand why he reacted the way he did and I have spent the last two decades figuring that out.
I am in my fifth decade of life now and I am older and dare I say it, wiser. Life has happened. When I finally made my will, I confronted the fear of facing my mortality. It was very scary at first and it felt like I was ‘calling death’ but as I pushed on to the finish, I found that the experience was an opportunity to reflect on my life’s journey. Facing my mortality made me look back at my life and prepare a sort of ‘report card’.
What did I have to leave? Who was I leaving it to and why? Who would step into the gap for me when I was gone?
These are questions we all must face from time to time. The questions may appear simple, but I guarantee that they are not easy to answer. In my experience as a practitioner, I have found that dealing with these questions is a daunting task that causes many of us (myself included) to shy away from making a will.
The first question that almost always comes up in this process and one which I asked myself is ‘What do I have to leave?’ Like so many of us, I have always believed that I had not accumulated enough property and money, among others to pass on to my heirs and that I should focus first on acquiring some wealth before I thought of making a will.
Looking back at that belief, I find that it is one of those untrue and self-limiting beliefs that keep us in bondage. It speaks to a ‘lack mentality’ where money and possessions are never enough.
Making a will forced me to re-examine my beliefs about money and possessions. I decided to change my perspective. It was not about what I didn’t have, it was about what I did have. I decided that what I already had was important not because of its financial value but because I had worked to get it.
Secondly, what I had to give would be important to my heirs, again not because of its value, but because I had gifted it to them.
I also realised that making a will is a statement of intent. As I was going through this process, I questioned the role that material possessions play in my life. The things that I have acquired thus far and the things I seek to acquire—what are they for?
Money and possessions now have a specific purpose, which is to add joy to my life and to be a useful legacy to my heirs.
I looked at the question of my heirs and examined my relationship with them. Why were these people, my heirs?
Was it just a relationship of genetics and proximity or is there love and mutual respect? Making a will also requires that one appoint an executor or executor.
These are people who will step into the gap that you have left to carry out your wishes. It is a relationship of deep trust. The making of a will requires one to examine their relationships with heirs and proposed executors closely.
Many of us are fortunate that people who are close to us are also those that we love, respect and trust, the most. In those situations, identifying heirs and executors is simple and easy.
Sadly, this is not always the case. Many people shy away from making a will when it means that the process will trigger an examination of the quality of their relationships. In my experience both personally and professionally, this is a bigger obstacle to making wills than the lack of material possessions.
In such a situation, making a will can serve as a wake-up call to clean our relationship house. Fix those relationships that can be fixed and exit the ones that can’t.
The most conventional reason for writing a will is usually to avoid succession battles after one is gone. But as one old man once told me “I’ll be dead anyway, so it won’t be my problem”.
This is a very honest perspective. We humans rarely do anything out of sheer altruism. We are inherently self-motivated. We do things that are of direct benefit to us. Therefore, learning from my experience, write a will for your benefit.
Write a will as it will help you give value to the material things you have already acquired and focus your acquisition journey.
Write a will as it will help you examine the quality of your close relationships to enhance the good ones, repair the broken ones and exit the toxic ones. In short write a will because it adds value to your life.
So, for those brave souls who feel the fear and do it anyway, the process will be empowering and liberating.
Ms Nduati is an Advocate of the High Court Trust and Estate Practitioner. [email protected]
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