Our Last Love Letter
a generous view and way for drafting and executing estate plans
Hello my friend,
My heart, feeling potent, fierce and chatty, wants to begin this missive with the encouraging statement below.
Let love, boundless love, guide the creation of your estate plans. Years ago a dear friend and colleague, the late Dick Wagner, suggested that our legal estate documents are the last love letter we give to our loved ones. His words and sentiments plowed through my heart. Sealed in that moment was a new way of holding the often painful, neglected, rejected, and procrastinated actions of estate planning. From that moment forward we viewed estate planning differently and held our client conversations differently. Now, we dive deeper, speak louder, with truer, self reflective (interior) practices we engage to soften and strengthen our estate planning process, and to emerge from the experience more connected and complete with the people most dear to us.
Technical documents
Most consider estate plans to be the formal written legal documents that manage the material matters of our life - our money, real estate, chattel - the valuable (sentimentally or financially) things that remain after our body becomes a corpse. Estate documents also dictate end of life choices prior to taking our last breath. Estate plans include documents such as, wills, trusts, durable powers of attorney, and health care proxies. Formal executed documents are important to complete acting as the authority of your choices when you are no longer personally capable or living this life.
If you do not have an executed estate plan, your estate plan is decided by the state in which you reside. It is called an intestate estate and the statutes of the state you live may or may not reflect your wishes. My strong suggestion is to be clear and make your choices explicit with written signed documents. Your choices for support are vast and not all are super expensive. You can search online for options sufficient for your needs if your estate planning is simple. For more complicated situations, you may want to seek the counsel of an attorney.
Pro-Tip: Don’t forget to fund your executed trusts. I cannot tell you how often we see completed estate plans with unfunded trusts (the assets intended to be held inside the trusts are not). To optimize the skillful planned strategy, please follow through with necessary implementation.
Written executed documents are important and often dominated by our rational strategic mind. Whether your process is engaging a complex estate plan or completing a simple online template, invite generosity and connection to the cerebral experience and see how the process unfolds. My guess is you may activate your tender heart and your experience will feel more aligned with what matters most to you. And then, you can turn your attention to my purpose of this writing, which is a connection we deeply want and usually are not aware until the moment happens.
Letting Our Heart Speak
Our time of death is unknown, until we are actively dying and even then, the exact moment is a constant movement. Our rational mind shoves this truth in a box stuffed in the back closet for another convenient time when we can give attention to it. Because for sure we have more pressing matters to complete on our to-do lists and there will be plenty of time to complete our estate plan. And then we do not.
Let’s pause and take three breaths.
Let’s pause the busyness of our life, all the important tasks vying for our attention.
What if today were your last day alive on earth?
Are you ready to die? I am guessing you may not be. I know I am not ready.
If you did die today, what would be your top 3 regrets? (A reflection question…)
Sitting here in my early 60’s, experiencing both parents passing just prior to the pandemic, I face and accept my mortality. I welcome another precious chance and choice to live with no rocking chair regrets and no after human life regrets.
My brain chimes in contributing to the process because it did a great job drafting and executing thoughtful estate documents. Thanking my brilliant prefrontal cortex, I welcome and open my heart; our cognition does not lead the expression of our last love letter, letter - ever.
One client shared a most tender experience after her mother died when she found her mother’s gorgeous handwritten letter expressing just what she needed to receive to meet her heartbreak. Another client shared an opposite experience hoping for the same loving expressions - only to find a bill they mistook for a sealed envelope with a personal handwritten note. Crushing, this moment fed a long lasting period of grief and sorrow.
Most of us have (or have heard) stories about families falling apart during and after the management of their parents’ estate. Unfulfilled parental needs and wants from our childhood get activated and heightened. Sibling relationships become strained and broken while cleaning up messes and getting sh*t get done. Typical legal documents in estate plans leave little room for heart speak. Legal documents answer How.
How will my estate be managed after I am gone?
What happens to my stuff and who gets what?
Missing from the writing is Why. Why were choices made? Why do you matter?
Last love letters fill the why gaps unable to be filled by formal estate planning. Our generous writing softens edges, fills the space, and holds hearts that can never be satisfied by the material world. I believe that healing and repair are possible, even in the most dire and trying estate situations, when kind attention is given to writing a last love letter to the people who matter to us.
If you are moved to write a last love letter for your most precious people, start now. There are no rules when expressing from the heart. Grab a pen and paper and let your love flow. Open your laptop and click the keys longing to say “I adore you, I’m proud of you, you matter, everything is okay.” Truly, there is no time like the present.
When complete, remember to:
create a tangible document (something to hold),
sign your name, if typed letter (writing transmits the energy of words), and
leave in a place with instructions for your loved ones to find it.
If you are not sure how to begin, read on for a few suggestions, other ideas and future opportunities to engage. Always remember there is no wrong way. Motivation leads!
Keep it simple and lose any tendencies for perfection. Your way is the right way, especially when expressing love.
Schedule space in your calendar. Competing activities require us to prioritize this desired action. Love letters do not require perfection, but they need our attention.
Connect with your partner or a buddy. If engaging in this generous act solo feels daunting, ask your partner or friend to join you in the process.
Read these books for inspiration, directly and indirectly related to the topic:
Briefly Perfectly Human by Alua Arthur
The Well-Lived Life by Gladys McGarey
The Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware
Try these tools:
Letter Project - Dear Friends and Family
The Art of Legacy Letters - Article
Last love letters remain an important topic in our work and in our life; we are spreading the word in multiple avenues.
Knight Colman, a member of our firm (also my adult son *smiley face*), joined Marie Swift on the Fiduciary Voices Podcast to discuss the importance and potential of creating estate plans holding generosity as the primary motivation. Check it out via the link below.
Fiduciary Voices - Generous Estate Planning
2025 Wisdom Circles
Next year I plan to host Wisdom Circles on meaningful topics such as generous estate planning and creating last love letters. Exploring ideas is only part of these circles. We will also engage conversation and practices held in kind safe spaces. All participants can choose to take baby-step or giant-step actions, motivated by their heart and what matters most.
Please follow this link to express your interest and to receive information on future classes.
I know the world I want to live in and to leave to future generations. Coming together in this way is a kind and generous path forward. I’d love for you to join me if you are moved to participate in these circles.
With much love, always ~
Gayle