Monday, October 20, 2008

My Father, the king of real

This past Friday I spent 2 hours in a room with my 3 siblings, my parent's financial planner, and a lawyer. At my Mother's urging, my Father agreed to start to get their Will and financial matters figured out. My Dad has always seemed to have a general dislike of lawyers so - I figured it was going to be interesting. The lawyer was surprisingly down to earth with a strong northern Minnesota accent. He did not really fit the lawyer stereotype. However, he was very talkative (thank goodness this initial meeting was free of charge or else this would have been concerning). He was more than happy to share stories from his past regarding his family's experience with his grandpa's farm when he passed away. My Dad said very little during the meeting, as usual, he is a man of few words. He did make two striking comments. The first was about 20 minutes into the meeting when he said to the lawyer, "We might as well get something straight right now, I have cancer and I'm gonna die." The lawyer then stopped talking in futuristic terms and started focusing on what needed to be determined in the short term. The second thing my Father said, about an hour and 15 minutes into the meeting was, "There certainly has been a lot of B.S. so far but not a lot has been determined. When it comes down to it, it's going to be how I say." And the lawyer enthusiastically agreed. My Father has never sugar coated anything, he may not say much, but when he does he is VERY straightforward and says it like it is. I have inherited some of this. I talk more than my Dad but I tend to say it like it is, sometimes people don't like it but that's just the way it is. If I don't care for you I am not going to pretend to like you. What you see is what you get.

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