in the beginning...

I am here because my wonderful, thoughtful and delightful circle of friends insisted upon it. Actually, they're clamoring for a book, but I thought I'd start with a blog instead. A book about what, exactly?

It seems that folks my age (GenX-ers) are getting to a point in our lives where we're having to make the unfortunate step into dealing with our aging/dying parental units. I am no different. My folks died rather young, both in their 60's, so I'm dealing with the fallout earlier than most of my friends. My father died in 2000; my mother in December of 2008, on her birthday, no less (she always did like things tidy) and all of the business of settling her life has fallen to me, the youngest of two. Why just me and not my elder sibling? He's of diminished capacity which will be discussed ad nauseum later. The thing is, there really doesn't seem to be a road map about these sorts of things, and as I related the tales of blindly working my way through the process, my friends would exclaim that a) they had even less of an idea than I did about what to do when the last parent dies and b) PLEASE WRITE A BOOK SO I'LL KNOW WHAT DO PLEASE OH PLEASE.

When your average individual tries to do a web search on settling an estate, that individual won't find an awful lot. What you will find however, is a plethora of information on how to plan your estate, which obviously didn't do me one iota of good. I'm a librarian. I know how to search the intarwebs, dammit, and I still couldn't find good/applicable advice, only different sites where I was able to piece together at least some assistance.

So here I am, ready, willing and able to share my personal hell known officially as Probating My Mother's Estate. Please note that while I will be discussing details of the legal process in depth, this blog does not intend to provide legal assistance. I'm a librarian and you really should consult an attorney instead.