The grabbing hands grab all they can

My little brother wrote the last words (above) on his blog four months before he died, and they couldn’t be more accurate. Was it a subliminal message?

He was a clever man. He rarely made stupid mistakes, and I say stupid because I’m sure he made many silly mistakes, but not STUPID ones. However, he did make two disastrous mistakes, but I’m only going to talk about one.

Bro’ appointed me as his sole executor in 2005. He came to see me at work in Leicester and asked me to sign his will. Two of my colleagues witnessed it. We said our goodbyes, and off he went on his travels to Portugal with his whole life and worth packed into his Vauxhall Senator (I think it was a Senator).

To cut a long story short, I have endured just over two years of legal work to settle his estate to ensure that his rightful beneficiary receives what was meant for him. My brother made me the sole executor, knowing that I would do the best for him, and I hope I have, but he made a crucial mistake to save a dollar or two for all his intelligence. He wrote his own will, did his research and believed he’d got it right. But because he didn’t want to spend money having a solicitor write or check it, he made an omission and due to the contentious nature of his wording, into battle, we went with not just one but two people. I’m exhausted. But it’s not over as the final investigation report into what caused his death has still not been received.

There is a moral to this post that I want people to think about and take on board. If you value your loved ones and want to provide for them, write a will and review and update it regularly. Not only write a will but make sure that you do it through or have it checked by a lawyer or solicitor. For the sake of a few hundred quid you could be saving your family a lot of pain and heartache. As if losing you isn’t painful enough.

If you want to find out just how clever and intelligent my brother really was, hop on over to The November Archives and read through 14 years of his antics and mischief from travelling around the world.

I started writing this latest issue in February, but it just never felt it fitting to post it until today, National Brother’s Day.