A strikingly beautiful, elderly Chinese woman got out of a cab in front of my office one day in the 1990s. She had a long white braid of thick hair and a frail frame. As I met with her, I learned that she had been a refugee as a young woman fleeing the Japanese attacks on Shanghai in the 1930s. She had been transported by boat to the Canary Islands where she had lived for many years before marrying an American and moving to the United States. She earned her formal education in the United States, but you could tell that life taught her far more than any classroom ever had. She spoke many languages including Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and English. She also taught piano on the side, not for money really but just because she enjoyed being around children which she’d never had.
She came to me for a will and a trust agreement because she was unmarried and had no children or family living in the United States. She had been very good with her money but really had no one to leave it to. When we finished our consultation, she asked if I minded coming to her house because she needed to show me some things so that I could properly describe them in the documents. Ordinarily, lawyers don’t make house calls, but this woman was intriguing, and her stories were amazing. I went to her house, and she made me hot tea and she began showing me different items that she was leaving to some of her piano students.
We then went through a lot of conditional gifts to charities. In a trust, you get to make the rules, even when you’re dead. You can be just as fussy and difficult as you want to be. For example, if you wanted to leave an ongoing donation to the Zoo so long as they continued to keep at least two of your favorite kind of monkeys, you can do that. If you wanted to leave money to a church, so long as they set up a free bible school program for at least five children per summer with the funds – you can do that. Heck, you could even leave money to someone every day for every day that they wore a blue shirt if you wanted.
This beautiful woman, as brilliant as she was, ran her fingers around the pendant on her necklace as she devised several of these types of gifts in a trust. She was as precise and detailed as her many language skills and piano sheet music. I often wonder whether those places she left gifts to still are working under her guidelines today. In my mind, it’s the Tale of Two Monkeys (thus, the picture below).
YOU MAKE THE RULES.
When you are drafting a will or a trust, you make the rules. It can be as simple or as complex as you choose for it to be. If you want to be buried in your cowboy boots, you can write it in there. If you want to give your favorite wristwatch to your best friend from 2nd grade, do it. If you want to put some safeguards in to make sure that your children don’t find themselves in the middle of a divorce to some deadbeat and losing what you leave them, we can help you draft that. If you want to leave an organization a donation but you want to make sure it’s used properly then we can assist. It’s your lifetime of efforts that lead up to the legacy you leave behind, you make the rules.
