A Last Will and Testament

If I had a dime for every Last Will & Testament I did . . . . .

When a client came in for a Will they would have a private appointment to meet with the attorney but then the Will had to be drafted up and then client come back to execute the Will (sign it).  It was quite a process since they would have to read and review it, initial each page and then an attorney needed to be present when they signed it as well as two witnesses.  Once we got the Will drafted up, we would set up an Will Execution appointment but since we did literally hundreds of these a month, we'd squeeze as many people into the appointment as necessary.  We would take them into the conference room and just do a mass signing.

One appointment we had a full conference room.  We'd start out by explaining what we'd be doing and some legal stuff, of which I really don't recall, and then we'd get one of the attorneys to come in.  Normally since the attorneys were so busy with appointments, we'd call them in at the last minute.

This one particular time we were waiting on the attorney to come in so the clients were sitting around chit chatting.  There was this one young couple that had a baby that was only about a couple weeks old and since I was pregnant well --new mommies and pregnant women like to "talk shop" so I struck up a conversation with the young mother.

I forget where the couple was from but they had been high school sweethearts and got married soon after high school just before the young man enlisted in the Army.  It was a year or two later an now they were stationed at Ft. Riley and just had their first baby.  They were excited to soon be driving home because most of their family had not yet seen their baby girl.  They signed their Wills, went on their way and like the hundreds I had done before them, I never gave it another thought.

Not too long after that I heard of a soldier that was killed in a car accident.  It is always sad when anyone dies but soldiers especially don't like to hear about losing another soldier and since the guy was young, that was sad too.

A day or two later I walked into the office and notice this older couple in the waiting area and they had a baby with them --it caught my attention both because they seemed a bit old to have such a young baby but also because the baby looked familiar to me --but I did not give it much thought beyond that.  It was just a few minutes later my OIC called me into his office and asked me to pull a Will for a certain soldier.  I looked at the name and said, "I think we just did this one a few days ago, is there a problem?"  The Captain said to me, "Remember the soldier that was recently killed in a car accident?  Well, he and his wife were driving home for the holidays and they both were killed --only their infant daughter survived.  Since the guy was a soldier, they had the bodies sent here.  Both sets of parents are here to claim the bodies and take the grand daughter home --they're out in the waiting room.  We just need to give them a copy of the Will so they know who gets custody of the baby."

It turns out the maternal grandparents were named guardians of the child and that worked out well because the paternal grandparents wanted to be just that --grandparents.  They felt they were too old to raise a baby.  When I walked back out of my OCI 's office I looked over and saw the five of them sitting there; both sets of parents and the baby.  I just could not imagine their pain--they had not even buried their children yet and that baby . . . . she would never know her Mom and Dad.

Since that baby was only a few months older than my daughter, I often think about that girl --wondering how her life turned out, where she lived, if her grandparents lived long enough to raise her . . .I think about her sometimes and just wonder. . . .

And I will never ever forget the looks on those parent's faces as they sat in that waiting room waiting  . . . just waiting . . .waiting to get through legal paperwork, waiting to take their children's bodies home to bury them, waiting for answers, waiting . . . . hurting . . .holding on . . . .

You just don't forget things like that, ever.