We Will Talk About the Will After Christmas, and Other Things My Family Said for Twenty Years

A reader writes:

I have sung in a church choir for thirty-four years, which means I have stood at the front of a lot of funerals. You learn to read a congregation from up there. You can tell the families who are only grieving from the families who are grieving and also, quietly, already at war. They sit in separate rows. One set of children comes in the front door, the other set comes in the side. Somebody’s husband is looking at his phone in a way that tells you there is a lawyer on the other end.

Nine times out of ten, when I ask afterwards what happened, the answer is some version of the same thing. There was no will. Or there was a will nobody could find. Or Daddy “always said” the house was for the youngest, but he said it on the verandah one evening in 1998, and only the youngest remembers.

I want to say something that may not be popular: I think we, as church people, are some of the worst at this. We will pray about anything. We will fast for a job, lay hands on a sick child, hold a vigil for a son abroad. But mention a will at the dinner table and suddenly everybody is superstitious. “Don’t talk like that.” “You want to dead?” “God is not finished with me yet.” My own mother used to say that making a will was “calling death to the house.” She was a deaconess. She knew her Bible better than most pastors. But on that one subject, she was more afraid than faithful.

I am speaking from experience, not from a height. My mother died without a will. She had a house in May Pen, a piece of land in the hills that her own father left, and a small account at the credit union. There were five of us. For twenty years whenever I raised it, the answer was “after Christmas”, or “when your brother comes home”, or “when I feel better”. Then she didn’t feel better, and there was no “after”.

What followed was not a big dramatic court case like you see on television. It was worse, in a way, because it was slow. It was years of phone calls that started polite and ended with somebody hanging up. It was my sister living in the house and paying nothing towards it, because “somebody had to mind Mummy”, and my brother in Florida saying he had paid for the roof and wanted that recognised. It was nobody paying the taxes on the hill land because nobody was sure it was theirs to pay. It was cousins turning up to say Granddaddy had promised them a piece too. Every one of us had a story, and every story was a little bit true.

We did sort it out eventually, with a lot of help and a lot of expense. But I lost six years of closeness with one of my sisters, and I don’t think we are fully back even now. Mummy would have been heartbroken. The very thing she was trying to avoid by not talking about it, which was upset in the family, is exactly what she left us.

So here is my view, for what an old choir baritone’s view is worth.

First, making a will is not a lack of faith. It is an act of love. The Bible is full of people putting their houses in order. Abraham made arrangements for his household. Joseph gave instructions about his bones. King Hezekiah was told plainly, “Set your house in order” (2 Kings 20:1). And Proverbs says a good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children (Proverbs 13:22). Nobody in Scripture treats this as bad luck.

Second, the talking matters as much as the paper. I know families where a will existed but nobody had ever heard what was in it, and the reading of it caused as much hurt as no will would have. If you have decided the house goes to one child and the land to another, tell them while you are alive and can explain why. Let them be angry with you, not with each other.

Third, do it properly. A letter in the Bible or a note in the drawer is better than nothing, but not by much. Go to an attorney-at-law. Find out what makes a will valid where you live. Tell somebody where it is kept.

And fourth, to the children: stop waiting for your parents to raise it. They may never. Ask gently, and ask more than once. My biggest regret is that I let “after Christmas” be the end of the conversation every year.

Last month I finally made my own will. I am sixty-two. I have been saying all this to other people for years and hadn’t done it myself, which tells you how strong the fear is. I sat my two children down afterwards and told them what was in it. My daughter cried. My son asked a lot of practical questions, which is his way. Then we ate. Nobody died. The sun set at the usual time.

I would like to sing at fewer funerals where the family is sitting in separate rows. We could start by being braver at the dinner table.

— Clive, Clarendon

Editor’s note

Clive names something many families will recognise: a reluctance to talk about death that ends up costing the living far more than the conversation ever would have. His two points are worth holding together. A properly prepared will, made with an attorney-at-law, gives clarity. An honest family conversation gives understanding. One without the other often leaves hurt behind. If there is a conversation your family keeps postponing until “after Christmas”, perhaps this could be the year it actually happens.

Reader letters may be edited for length and clarity, and names and identifying details are changed.

This article is general information only and is not financial, legal, tax or other professional advice. Please speak to a qualified professional about your own circumstances.

Follow Jamaica Homes on Youtube @jamaicahomes and Instagram @jamaica_homes and on Facebook @jamaicahomesnews Send us a message or email us at onlinefeedback@jamaica-homes.com or editor@jamaica-homes.com