Wills
Jeff thought he had lost just about everything when his wife, Nancy, died of breast cancer at age forty-foui leaving him with their two young children to raise. As it turned out, his losses were just beginning.
Before I met Nancy, I had sort of thought I would never get married or have kids, but she was different. She had moved from New York to California six years ago and found she just loved it here. About six months before we met, she bought a house for $225,000. It was kind of run-down, but she wanted to fix it up. That’s how we met. I’m a contractor with my own firm, and I came over to give her some estimates. I ended up doing the job for free—because six months later we were living together. We worked on the house together and it was transformed. Supposedly it’s worth about $300,000 by now.
To our surprise, Nancy got pregnant—she had never thought she could—and soon we were married, with two daughters. After our daughter was born, Nancy’s mother came to visit, and she didn’t like me at all; I know she thought I wasn’t good enough for Nancy. But it didn’t really matter, because she lived in New York and we hardly ever saw her.
Last year, Nancy was diagnosed with breast cancer. She had surgery, radiation, chemo, the entire treatment. The whole process scared us because we never really knew if Nancy was going to be okay or not. We realized that we never had given much thought to these things and that we didn’t even have a will. It was Nancy who insisted we have one drawn up. The house was still in her name, just as it was when we met, but in the will she left it to me. It was a given that I’d take care of the kids; I love my girls. She knew I’d find a way. In the end things happened so fast. Nancy wanted to die at home, but the health insurance didn’t cover the hospice care. So when the time came, I paid for it with credit cards. It was hard. 1 wasn’t working very much because I wanted to be with her all the way through this.
After Nancy died three months ago, I went back to the lawyer to see what came next. Maybe I should have just taken the kids and left town. The probate fees on the house are going to be enormous. No way do I have that; all our savings went to the hospice people, and now I have credit card bills, too, plus I gave up a lot of jobs to be with my wife. The lawyer says that unless I pay these probate fees, he will probably force the sale of the house. That’s not all. Now Nancy’s mother has flown out from New York, says she wants the kids, that she can give them private schools, and that I’m not a good father. That’s not true, and the attorney says it will never happen, but now I have attorney’s fees up to here. Even if I could get the money for the probate fees—which feels like making bail or something—now I’ll have to sell the house anyway, to pay the attorney’s fees and the credit cards. So the kids and I will lose the house regardless. All that work we put into it. I thought nothing could get worse after I lost my wife. I thought wrong.