About a month ago, I received a call from my uncle who lives about 4 hours away. His sister (who lives in the same city I do) had passed away unexpectedly. Not only was this woman his sister, but she was a Sister (as in a Catholic nun!). In addition, she had been primary caregiver for another Sister 30 years her senior.
Without boring you with too much detail, "life" happened for these Sisters. Their once meticulously organized and spotless-kept apartment was no longer. They had adopted what I call the "piling system" (vs a traditional filing system). There was no big red box with flashing lights labeled "Here are my important papers". It was going to be trying to find a needle in a haystack.
Within minutes of entering the apartment an in-law said, "This apartment has to be cleaned out. The manager is going to want to turn this over quickly."
Whoa! Hold the horses! First of all, my uncle, being the living next of kin, was the only one with any right to say what would go.
My hat quickly changed from Niece to Senior Move Manager. How could I help my 80-something uncle on the east side of our state get information he needed?
Address books, bills, bank statements, letters/cards (ever to have been received by both of the Sisters) were in different places throughout the apartment. Finding a Will was the first priority!
A methodical approach and lots of patience were going to be needed! (And fingers crossed, a Will would be found!)
The next few days were spent organizing all the piles of statements, bills, scraps of paper with names and phone numbers. (On a side note and unbeknownst to the family or apartment manager, the older Sister had moved out of state, with just the clothes on her back.) The Sisters had known each other for over 40 years and shared a home together for nearly as much time. Of course their things were commingled!
The searching and organizing continued and in the midst of a pile were two business cards - for a funeral home and attorney (from a state they hadn't live in for over 20 years). Wow! Wouldn't that be the perfect scenario....prearrangements for her funeral had been made and she had a Will? Several phone calls were placed and voicemails exchanged. Hopes dashed when one call indicated no pre-arrangements had been made. But the call to the attorney....a copy of "the needle" had been found!
The Sisters were former teachers and they had what seemed like a zillion boxes of lesson plans and student school work filled the two small closets. After confirmation from several sources, the contents of those boxes were not needed.
But I digress. After emptying one closet, it was time to search the drawers. (You never know....something important could be at the back of a drawer.) No luck. So onto the other closet. This time it was boxes of books! (I tell you, these Sisters kept everything!)
It took searching several boxes but lo and behold....the treasure chest had been found!
A folder neatly labeled WILL was right there with several other important documents! (Insert picture of me doing a happy dance here.) And someone had been identified as beneficiary of her stuff. Woohoo!
Things progressed, contacts had been made and the process was starting. Now to start dealing with all the "stuff". But as I began going through the apartment to separate out all the religious things from the ordinary household things, taking pictures off the wall, reading luggage tags and opening book covers, I came to the realization that most, if not all the "things" belonged to the older Sister - who was still alive!
There was no way I could just get rid of these things without finding out if she or any of her family wanted them. (Back to detective work...I remembered seeing a recent card addressed to the older Sister from her niece.) Phone calls made and gratitudes expressed for saving (and sending) her many of the treasures from her dear aunt.
My Aunt was a very private person. She had a knack for getting people to tell her all sorts of details about their lives but when it came to her "giving up the goods", she was a tight as a drum.
Through looking at MANY letters, and conversations with some folks who have been able to help, I've been able to piece together her history. But to this day, we don't know what inspired her to be a nun.
So the moral of the story is, death in inevitable. You can make it much easier on your family if all your important documents are in order, in a safe place and you've communicated to someone where you've stored them.
To Family Members: Backing up the truck and dumping things before a thorough review can lead to treasures and important things being gone forever.
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