SPEAKER 03 : 0:04

Welcome to Mobile Estate Planning with your host, Michael Bailey. Over a decade ago, attorney Michael Bailey turned his attention to estate law after he recognized the unacceptable number of adults without proper end of life planning. Michael recognizes that many of his clients have difficulty finding the time for making a proper estate plan. That’s why he became the Mobile Estate Planner. We will go to wherever you are to assist you with your estate planning, including writing wills, trusts, and giving you the information you need to avoid probate. Now, ATX, Ask the Experts, presents Mobile Estate Planning with your host, Michael Bailey.

SPEAKER 01 : 0:56

All right, good afternoon. Welcome to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey here on 560 KLZ AM or 100.7 FM. So we can do something besides just leave your family alone. Phone number to talk to me on the air is 303-477-5600. And again, that’s 303-477-5600. And my direct line is 720-394-6887. Once again, 720-394-6887. So, you know, estate planning and doing something besides just leaving your family alone kind of took on a whole new meaning to me this last week. And it’s time for a sad, sad story. Um, so, you know, a couple of weeks ago, I know I told you about all about how my daughter had gotten her, she’d turned 16, gotten her driver’s license and, you know, all sorts of excitingness. Um, and then, uh, I believe it was last Wednesday night. My, I was sitting down at my computer at home to print something out for the next day. And my daughter came out of the, her room and she was holding her, I phone in one hand and she had her other hand covering her mouth kind of in a you know shock and surprise type of thing now normally when this happens um it’s that her one of her friends has done something ridiculous or stupid or you know her volleyball team has done something that would you know you know would cause her to be silly you know like she’s like oh you know It just didn’t turn in her homework assignment. Now she’s failing, and so she’s not sure if she can play in the band competition this weekend. Or, oh, my friend’s boyfriend, you know, they broke up or something like this. And I said, hey, kiddo, what’s up? And she looked at me and she said, Tierney died. Now, Tierney is her friend. Tierney is her, or was her 16-year-old friend who she played the flute with in their high school marching band and in their band. Tierney was at school two weeks ago playing flute in the band, and then she missed a Monday and a Tuesday because she was sick. And then a couple days after that, my daughter was telling me about how she’d been taken down to Children’s Hospital and undergone emergency brain surgery because she apparently had some strain of the influenza that spread to her brain. And so her brain was swelling. So they did brain surgery too. And they knew it was risky. They knew it was. But then we’d heard about the brain surgery. And my daughter said, oh, well, she’s not responding as well as they want. But she’s at Children’s Hospital with the best doctors and the best care that we can possibly have. And that was the last we’d heard about it for three or four days. And we had assumed that no news was good news. And then suddenly… my daughter gets word that her friend had passed away. And to a 16-year-old, I mean, that’s just devastating. It’s devastating to anybody to lose somebody. But for a 16-year-old to be sick, you know, I mean, she had headache, earache. She was, you know, vomiting and things like that. You know, you’re like, okay, maybe it’s a bad cold. Maybe it’s the flu. but not realizing that it had spread to her brain and that’s what was causing some of the problems. Initially, they thought it might have been an ear infection that spread to her brain, but no, it was just the flu virus that was there and caught in her. And so they took her and they did the brain surgery and apparently the You know, there was swelling. So I’m not entirely sure what the, but it’s like, you know, apparently a normal brain is like 15% swollen or something like that. And hers was at like 40%. So they needed to do something to relieve the pressure. And then afterwards, you know, it wasn’t, the swelling wasn’t necessarily going down. And so they were concerned. And then they did the test again, and they’re like, oh, well, the swelling’s down at 17%. And everybody was happy. We’re like, cool, it’s working. And then they ran an MRI. And the MRI revealed that it was down to 70%, down to 17%, because she was brain dead. And… So they gathered. Her sister was off at college, and she had come home knowing that this was a very frightening thing. And so they gathered, they said their final goodbyes, and they let her go. And that is a terrible, horrible thing to have to do to anybody, whether you’re a teenager or it’s your parents or who it is. And, you know, I tend to joke and be a little bit jovial about planning for death and death and dying and things like that. But that particular, you know, last week, all I could do was stand up, walk across the hallway and say, I’m so sorry. And let her cry on my shoulder. That’s all there was to do at that point. Because there was nothing we could do. Now, last night, there was a band concert. And normally they all dress in concert black. Well, Tierney’s favorite color is pink. So it was concert black and concert pink. And they set up her chair and there were so many flowers and so much, you know, outpouring of support, you know, that the chair was covered in flowers and they all performed, you know, this is kind of the definition of the show must go on, um, for her friends. But it was an interesting reminder of, I mean, this particular girl, I don’t suppose she has much in the way of assets to worry about estate planning for. Whatever she owned, probably her parents can just gather up and do. But my daughter’s worried about driving and getting herself to and from volleyball practice and whatever drama is going on with the volleyball team and coaches and things like that. but it’s all amplified and it’s all worse because you had the 16-year-old friend who passed away from a sudden illness. We like to think that we have modern medicine and all these wonderful things, but we still don’t quite know how to beat death. And, you know, this was just, you know, apparently the high schools in the district has a whole protocol for such things. So, you know, every counselor in the district and every grief counselor was there the day after this girl passed away. And, you know, it was nice to see the outpouring of all of that. And you’re like, wow, this is some really heavy, tough stuff for the 16-year-olds to process. And so you are listening to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey here on 560 KLZ AM, also heard on 100.7 FM or the KLZ 560 radio app. Phone number to talk to me on the air is 303-477-5600. And again, that’s 303-477-5600. And my direct line is 720-394-6887. And again, that’s 720-394-6887. So the night that she passed away, my daughter’s other friend had been like, oh, you need to call me because she didn’t want to say via the text, hey, this is what happened. But a lot of the students and a lot of the band students and everything, they started posting pictures of her on social media and Instagram and Snapchat and those type of things and They organized a whole, you know, since her favorite color is pink, it was wear pink on the Thursday. So, you know, everybody who, you know, so the high school actually took a picture of everybody who was wearing pink. And it’s hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of students. And the band took their own picture. And, you know, so it was the outpouring of love and support for these for everything. And it happened to be this weekend they had a school play. So a bunch of the people who knew them in the school play were there. And when you reach the aftermath of all of this, it’s a very sad thing. And the grief counselors were the right people to be there doing things. Because I do the planning side of things and I can express sympathy and things like that. But I don’t know that I’m necessarily qualified to help people through their grief. It looks like we have a phone call here. Jay, are you there? Yeah, I’m here. How are you today? I’m all right. How are you?

SPEAKER 04 : 10:56

Pretty good. I’ve been working on my will, and I have it all done, and now I’m wondering, will my executor need a lawyer for probate when I pass away? How do I figure that out, and can I have a lawyer sort of lined up beforehand?

SPEAKER 01 : 11:17

So probate in Colorado is pretty well form-driven. You can find the forms to do probate online. The Colorado Judiciary publishes those. And they’re the Colorado JDF forms, Judicial Department form, JDF. And so if your named personal representative thinks that they can handle that, then they can certainly do that on their own. If you wanted to have an attorney, I’m sure that you could find an attorney to see who handles probate administration, and you could make sure that they’re going to be available. I mean, I imagine that probate attorneys like that could either have um you know fee agreements or retainer agreements where you can set them up and you know barring anything catastrophic happening like they die or retire then they would be in place um most probably this isn’t a hard this isn’t been difficult to get a lawyer to help if needed it shouldn’t be no you just have to find one that handles those type of cases and is that a specialization or can any lawyer do that Uh, technically any lawyer is qualified to do it, but, uh, whether or not a lawyer’s willing to take on the case would be, it’s usually a specialization, you know? So, you know, and I do the planning part of things. I don’t even do the administration of things. It’s just not part of what I do. You know, my friend who is a, um, criminal defense attorney, she is technically qualified to do it. but she spends her time and efforts doing criminal defense and is specialized in that, so she knows what she’s doing there, so she probably would not take it on. But there are plenty of attorneys who do take on probate administration type of cases. I have friends who do it, so if it’s somebody who was my client and they need somebody to handle that for them, I’m happy to refer them to the people who would do that.

SPEAKER 04 : 13:25

And do you think someone… could file these probate papers on their own.

SPEAKER 01 : 13:32

Yes.

SPEAKER 04 : 13:32

I mean, my executor is pretty knowledgeable.

SPEAKER 01 : 13:37

Yeah, so if you, I mean, the forms all have instructions with them. So if you take it and you fill them out and you, I mean, you have the form JDF 906 is instructions for probate with a will. So if you go through the steps that are listed there, then you should be able to accomplish the things you need. If there’s more complications, like if there’s debts or Medicaid needs to be paid or something like that, then you might want to involve an attorney. But otherwise, probate in Colorado is fairly straightforward and form-driven.

SPEAKER 04 : 14:15

Okay. Well, that’s good to know because I want to tell my executor sort of what to expect. Sure. I think that’s all I need, and I’ll take a look at these forms, see if I can understand them.

SPEAKER 01 : 14:25

All right. Sounds good. Thanks. Thanks for the information. You’re welcome. Take care. All right. Thanks. Bye. Bye. So just all of these things and how do I, I mean, my youngest brother is an addiction and recovery counselor and he’s been trained in counseling and things like that and how to process grief and trauma and things like that. I have not. I can express sympathy, I can help people get through kind of the what do we do with the money type of things, but a situation like this is definitely a tough one and so yesterday my wife or my uh my daughter texts me she says do you have a pink tie and i’m like i don’t have a solid pink tie i have a pink tie with hearts on it that’s kind of a valentine’s day tie but it’s not a pink tie and so she’s like okay so she went to like three or four different stores to get a pink bow that she could wear for the concert last night. But then, so she’d asked me about the pink tie and then like five minutes later she sent me a text, she sent my wife and I a text that said, so the school just announced that there was a 16 year old, another of her classmates, who committed suicide last night. And I was like, oh my gosh, this poor school. The double whammy of a child who died due to an illness and now a suicide. And I’m like, oh my gosh, this is just, I don’t get it. I mean, I suppose there were times during, I think of my grandfather serving in World War II and my Dad was a college student during the time of Vietnam, and, you know, people, you know, had people who would get, you know, perish as they were fighting in wars. And that makes, you know, that’s kind of how it goes. I mean, you know, my high school had a tradition where the top choir at graduation, they’ll sing the song, The Lord Bless You and Keep You. And they sing it once, and then the underclassmen in the top choirs, so the sophomores and the juniors, they’ll sing it again as the seniors will leave and go sit down in the audience for graduation. And that tradition started in World War II, because most of the male seniors who graduated were men. going off to war and world war ii and you know that’s going to be you know there’s going to be much more death and destruction and that than what we’ve had here but you know two kids from the same class from the same high school in a week oh my goodness that’s just ridiculous and uh you know we’re i was at the at the band concert last night i ran into the uh The principal is like, I’m so sorry you have to deal with this. I’m so sorry that this happened to your students. We can only hope that you don’t have to do this again and that everything moves on and is not this way. Because on Saturday when we saw her, we were talking about, she said she’s had three students that had died in the four or five years she’d been principal. And now it’s two in a week. And we’re like, oh my gosh, this is just terrible. It’s overwhelming and it’s horrible. And it’s all of those things. I can only imagine as a 16 year old, my 16 year old daughter, yeah, she knew the flute player, the one that died of the illness much better than she knew the other one. But still, her text was like, oh, this person committed suicide. All the grief counselors are back. They even brought in a service dog. So for the flute player that died, they had a dog. They brought the dog in and they let the dog stay in the band room so all the kids that were sad could go have this specially trained service grief dog. I didn’t know there was such a thing as a dog that was for grief counseling. I find that my dogs, it’s hard to stay upset when you’re sitting and petting a dog. That’s my experience. It’s my go-to therapy of petting my puppy dogs. But I just, you know, when death arrives, it’s very sad and it’s very hard. And it’s very hard to want to do anything else. So this is part of why we plan ahead with estate planning so that we’re not stuck in that situation. So you are listening to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey here on KLZ 560 AM. Also heard on 100.7 FM or the KLZ 560 radio app. Phone number to talk to me on the air is 477-5600. And again, that’s 477-5600. And my direct line is 394-6887. And once again, 394-6887. So when somebody dies, it’s a very difficult, very trying time. My daughter had a volleyball match on Friday night, and some of the teammates kind of were like, oh, it’s okay if you make a mistake. We understand. It’s hard. And she’s like, look, we’re playing volleyball. We want to win. Let’s just win the match. They did not end up winning, so she was sad that she was not going to have volleyball as a distraction for her over the weekend, but rather she would have a lot more time just to kind of sit and be by herself. But when someone has died, kind of the last thing you want to think about is, ooh, what do we do with their money? What do we do with their stuff? It’s just not high on the priority list. So that’s part of why we want to set up a plan beforehand so that we can say, okay, so I mean, my parents, when my parents die, we have a plan all in place of taking and getting their house sold and getting the investments transferred over to wherever they’re supposed to go and who’s supposed to get what money and all those type of things. But those investments, yeah, but we can get to that. The first thing we’re going to need to do is to mourn our parents. And then we can get to, oh, yeah, we’ve got to split up the money. Oh, hey, yeah, we actually have to do something here. Because that’s what… that’s what we’re but it’s it’s not top of mind you know when somebody first passes away you know you’re you’re like oh no they’re gone i can’t believe it and then you know there’s questions about what do we have to do with the funeral and how do we you know make sure that the electricity bill gets paid and you know the water bill and what do we do with their house and how do we clean all of this you know if they’ve been sick for a while how do we clean up the house and you there’s kind of all those practical considerations there. And it all comes at a time where you’ve lost your loved one. You know, I’m doing my parents dial probably be very sad. And you know, we’ll miss my mom and or dad terribly. You know, my parents are, you know, my dad’s in his early to mid-70s. My mom is, you know, five years younger, but still. You know, so they’re getting to the age where if they were to pass away, it wouldn’t be super surprising. You know, dad’s had quadruple bypass surgery. You know, he may have another heart thing, and this time it may take him. And, you know, you can never be prepared for that. I’m not like, oh, well, you know, I’m now steeled against such things so that when my dad dies, I will feel nothing. I’m like, I would hope that, you know, when your parents die, you would feel something, you know, just not, I mean, unless you’re a cold, cruel, heartless person. And as much as I pretend to be cruel and heartless, I’m not. But if we have our estate plan in place, then all of the things of who gets what money and who’s going to take care of them and who’s going to be at the hospital making decisions for them if they… you know, needs, you know, medical care and who’s going to be, if they need, if they needed some longterm care, who is going to be able to, um, you know, pay for things and who’s gonna be able to access their bank accounts or their, um, who’s going to be able to access their investments so that we can pull money out and pay for whatever care they need. All of those things are all in place, and all of those things are all where… We’ve got plans in place. We hope not to have to implement them anytime soon. I think the ideal situation is that on a beautiful sunny day when you’re 143 years old and in perfect health between now and then, that you’re out walking to the mailbox and enjoying the beautiful, wonderful sunny day and the birds singing, and then you can have complete and total massive internal organ failure so you feel no pain and you’re dead before you hit the ground. Now that would be awesome. It would be great to be, you know, the perfect way to go. You know, if you have, you’re happy, you’re healthy, you’ve got enough money to last that long. That would be amazing. But unfortunately that’s not quite how it happens. And whether it’s two situations I’ve been describing or I’ve had clients who they end up in long-term care or they end up in the ICU and how long do we have? You know, the kind of the illness and or the the injury and, you know, how does that go? And, you know, all of those type of things. When it comes time and somebody is gone, then you have a plan to implement and you can implement those plans the best you can. And, you know, there’s still going to be sadness. There’s still going to be grief. There’s still going to be the way in which things turn out and people, you know, having lost their lives. And especially for those who are near and dear to you and that you lose and that you love, it will be a significant impact. But the significant impact or not, you know, on Thursday, like all of the high school teachers were kind of like, yeah, we’re not going to do math today. Nope, we’re not going to do chemistry today. No, we’re just kind of going to do this. But Friday, they were back to being like, well, we can’t just take, you know, life has to move on. So there was chemistry or there was math to be done. And over the weekend, my daughter did her homework from Thursday and Friday that needed to be done to be caught up on. Because as important as people are, and as wonderful as they are, and as much as you miss them, life kind of continues on. I still have both parents alive, but I did a show six years ago about the day after my puppy dog died. And I was here doing the show. I just talked about my puppy dog. But a couple days after my dog died, I was out signing a trust for a woman who had lost her husband and was going to go into long-term care. And so we needed to get things taken care of. And, you know, just because somebody had died doesn’t mean that everything stopped. You know, it was very sad. And, you know, my poor 16 year old daughter is like, oh, you know, you know, they’re just kind of moving on and, you know, they’ve forgotten about her. I’m like, I don’t think they’ve forgotten about her, but it’s more that they just need to do what else needs to be done in the rest of life. And so estate planning is about planning for the rest of life, knowing full well there’s going to be difficulties and sadness that come along with death. So thank you so much for listening to Mobile Estate Planning with Michael Bailey. I will be back next week. But right now, stay tuned for John Rush and Rush to Reason, who’s up next. And I will talk to you later. Thanks and bye.

SPEAKER 03 : 27:03

Mobile estate planning with Michael Bailey will return to ATX next Wednesday at 2.30 here on KLZ 560, AM 560, FM 100.7, and online at klzradio.com.

SPEAKER 02 : 27:16

The views and opinions expressed on KLZ 560 are those of the speaker, commentators, hosts, their guests, and callers. They are not necessarily the views and opinions of Crawford Broadcasting or KLZ Management, employees, associates, or advertisers. KLZ 560 is a Crawford Broadcasting God and country station.