When your parents die...

The following program is recorded content created by Truth Network. The scriptures pretty clearly teach us that it is appointed once for men to die and then face the judgment. So we know that that is coming our way for all of us should the Lord Terry unless Jesus comes back sometime between now and when we would naturally normally pass away. Other than that, we're all going to deal with not only our personal death, which I know doesn't sound like such a hot topic, but it is reality. And then one of the things that most of us, if not all of us, have to deal with at one level or another is when your parents pass away. And whether that's mom first or dad and then dad and then mom, whatever the case may be, then if you're an only child or you have siblings, you're left to deal with something, especially on the heels of the loss of a parent, that is difficult. There's a lot to it in dealing with the estate of your parents.

And I think that just being a little bit of an observer, because my sister Catherine was the executor on our mother's estate and our dad died a little over three years ago and our mother passed away just about a year ago. And then just I had no clue how many things were involved, nor how many pitfalls there were, how many challenges there were. And so after kind of the emotional tides settled, I asked my sister if she would consider coming on the show just to share the lessons that she had learned because my fear was, and I'm thinking it's probably founded in reality, that a lot of people, maybe you, have not dealt with it yet or it's on the horizon or maybe it just happened and just aren't prepared. And so there's a lot to learn.

There's a lot to consider. So we're going to dip into the experience of my eldest sister, Catherine Graber, who's on Zoom today, who's been a great, not only a great older sister, but a great supporter of the show, a great encourager, is on Facebook Live most days. And now here you are on the other side of the camera. Hey, Kath, how are you? Good to see you. Hey, Steve. I'm good. How are you?

I'm good. Is this weird? Yes. This is the only time I've ever had a sibling on the show. So I had our dad on the show. Remember that? I remember. And quite strangely, I did the show with dad about, it was about three months before he passed away suddenly, and he was sitting in the same chair. So that, you know, I'll obviously never forget that.

So that was that time. Our two siblings have never been on. I don't know if they ever will.

Maybe one day. Hayden's been on. None of my three kids, other three kids have been on. And Gina, I don't think Gina's been on. I don't know that she would call once.

She probably called once. Yeah. But but so it's interesting. It's great to have you on.

I appreciate you being here. And there's a lot to learn. Let me ask you this, Kath, right out of the gate.

On a scale from one to ten, setting aside all the emotional challenges of what you go through, but on a scale from one to ten, how how ready were you just in terms of your knowledge and understanding of what was coming your way in dealing with the the state of our parents? Probably a one. Really?

That bad? Yeah. You know, I think truly, Steve, I think when you know, when I knew it was on my plate and Warren, my husband, was a great help through the whole thing, I really thought it would be pretty straightforward. And because it wasn't a a large, complicated estate or anything like that, and all of the nuances were, I was so surprised and I had no idea how complicated things could get. Yeah.

So quickly. Yeah. And just for everybody to have a little bit of reference here and talking to my sister, Katherine, this is, Katherine wasn't like a stay at home mom. You've been in the business world for decades and self-employed for a long time. So this is somebody with a lot of business acumen. And for a lot of people, I can't imagine, Kath, what this would be like for somebody that's never really dealt with kind of these quote unquote business issues. We all deal with our personal bills and things like that. And it's challenging enough for me to remember a password to get onto a bank account online or whatever. But goodness gracious, a scale of one to ten. And you say you were prepared at a level of one, a smart person like yourself.

That's pretty shocking. Well, you know, I think I thought, Steve, that my business experience and management and all the things I went through would have prepared me. But really, I think the emotional aspect of losing mother and then having to turn around and immediately go into all of this was probably a factor in that. But when you really are going in kind of clueless, which I was, you don't. I certainly had no idea what would be involved, how easy some things would be, how difficult other things would be, the order, the best order to do things. And so when I was making my notes to talk today with you, I was really retracing those steps to really try and help others who may face this because all my years of business experience, I've been doing all my years of business experience. And they probably weren't that big of a help.

Yeah, didn't prepare you. And so when our dad died, that was pretty much mother dealt with all that stuff. And that was her in the regular stream of her life.

And I know she had some challenges here and there. But once she passed away, how quickly did this all come to fruition that you have to start dealing with all this stuff? Was it the day of?

Was it the next day? It was actually before she died because of things with the bank that we can get into when you want to. And so there were elements of it even before she passed that were just like, oh, and that particular experience with the bank was not pleasant.

So it was before. Yeah. So we're going to cover a lot of nuts and bolts here and talk about whether we're talking about a funeral or a memorial service. You mentioned the bank, Kathy, and signature cards at the bank. And how do you deal with that? Like in this case, our mother was stuck at home.

She wasn't going anywhere. And you got to step into all that and then dealing with attorneys or estate attorneys. And then you think, oh, yeah, we need a copy of the death certificate. For example, you don't need one. You need a whole file folder full of them.

Well, why in the world would you need 10 or 15 or 20 copies of a death certificate? What about the car? If your parents had a car, leased a car, you need to sell a car, you don't want to keep the car, insurance, cellular stuff, estate sales, like what do you do with all that stuff?

None of us had any clue. I mean, we knew our mother had a lot of stuff, but she was so effective at storing things that, yeah, Kathy's cracking up on Zoom. She was so effective at storing things, you would walk into her house and go, oh, this is buttoned up pretty good.

Now you start opening closet doors, attic stuff, go out in the garage, and then you're like, holy cow. And then you got to deal with all that. So there's a lot here we're going to work through with my sister Catherine Graybear here on the show today. What do you do? How do you handle it?

When your parents pass away, whether it's you or another sibling that's the executor, you're all going to be involved at one level or not, or another, there's a lot to learn. So don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Welcome back.

It's Steve Noble, The Steve Noble Show here today with my special guest who I've known for a hot minute. That would be my sister, Catherine Graybear. And you can pray for her because, well, for obvious reasons, like I'm her little brother.

So that she's recovering from that. It's almost like you're a lawyer. You're always recovering when you're a lawyer. Are you always recovering when I'm your little brother?

No, I don't. Not usually. I'm fortunate. Not usually.

OK, I'll take that. So today we're talking about a very difficult experience that especially my two sisters, my brother as well, me not so much, got involved. That's one of the beauties of being the baby in the family is you really don't have hardly any responsibility. I enjoyed that when I was young.

I still enjoy it now as an older person. But what do you do? How do you handle it when your parents pass away? And usually it's not at the same time.

And so that's a whole nother thing. Our dad passed away first and he was pretty tight lipped about a bunch of things. And then our mother dealt with most of that stuff when our when our dad passed away. But then when our mother passed away a year ago, my sister Catherine with us today is the executor. But my other sister Sharon's involved and my brother's Mike's involved.

And then you get into all kinds of stuff. And I asked Kath at the beginning of the show on a scale from one to ten. And this is an experienced businesswoman. OK, successful businesswoman. On a scale from one to ten, how ready were you to deal with all this?

And you said a one, a one out of ten, which is surprising because you're a very, very capable person. So I want to get into these details, but I mentioned this on the break. If you would be able to put one particular kind of big thought idea out there as a lesson learned that you would pass on to people, would there be a main one, Kath? Would there be something that you would say, OK, definitely make sure you do this? Yeah, I think, well, yes, it depends on your parents.

But the thing that I would suggest is, if at all possible, try and talk to your parents if you still have both or your remaining parent and get as much information as possible as to their will, their trust, their desires, so that you're not left in this big black hole that you have to try and claw out of when you're dealing with the emotional side of losing your parents. Yeah. And so you got to and that's not always easy because parents will not always will not always want to be forthcoming with that stuff. Correct. Because it's a role reversal.

I just mentioned that to you. All of a sudden we're badgering them instead of them badgering us. Yes.

And we're trying to be responsible. And it was a role reversal with dad that he never would walk down that road. Right. And then after dad passed, mother was very reluctant and sometimes got really angry walking down that road. So it's difficult.

Yeah. It's difficult. Highly charged emotionally, which is why you want to deal with as much of it in advance as you can to kind of get stuff settled before it gets even more emotional.

But let's start with, and somebody on Facebook Live asked this already, Kath. Let's start with a will or a trust, because I think a lot of people would assume, oh, I'm sure my parents have a will. But that's not always true.

No, it's not always true. Mother and dad did a trust in the early 2000s. And it does vary by state, which surprised me because Warren and I a couple of years ago, Warren is my husband, we went to redo our will being here in the state of Tennessee. And we asked the lawyer, do we need a will or a trust? And when he explained to us the differences in the state of Tennessee, it didn't make a difference to have, there wasn't an advantage, I guess, is the better way to say it, of having the trust over the will, and the trust is more expensive in your fees to put it together. Is there a simple way to understand the difference between the two, a will versus a trust?

No, you're probably asking something I can't answer. If Warren was here, I'm sure he could. I'm sure he could. It's one of the things, it's the only thing I don't like about your husband is I literally think he does know everything, which is probably- He's incredibly bright, I know. But like using an attorney, would you suggest that? To get an estate attorney, somebody like that? We did it in Illinois with our will. And we decided to go ahead and do that here in Tennessee with revising our will, because we didn't know the Tennessee state laws in relation to that. And we have some property and we didn't know the ramifications of dealing with that. So we had a referral to an estate attorney.

He was great for us. And then I immediately knew I wanted to go see him again with mother's trust before we did anything. Now, there's four noble kids, okay?

Yeah. Kath and then our brother Mike, our sister Sharon, and then me. So one of the points you had in your notes, Kath, was it's important to know what your parents want to go to whom. You referenced this a few minutes ago about the book. So tell us about the book, because I think in many ways that was super helpful.

Well, there were actually two. So the book was the trust and it was all of the legal documents. But mother had written down separately in a little notebook what of hers, of hers and dad's, that she wanted to go to whom. All the way down to certain things to grandchildren that would have been given to them for their wedding, even though that's down the pike. So that was separate.

It was not part of the trust. You can make your, the bequeaths that you have part of your will for certain items. We've certainly done that. And the lawyer was very, our lawyer was just really helpful in identifying the types of things. But with mother, she just had a list. Yeah, there was a literal list. And then I recall, I mean, over the last several years, she would ask, which is always a little bit of an awkward moment when your mother asks you, what do you want?

Like walk through the house and make a list because you'd rather deal with that stuff all in advance. I don't think there were really any big issues with the four of us, but I've heard of really bad situations when nobody communicated beforehand and there's the one painting and the next thing you know, it's the Hatfields and McCoys. Yeah. And we know friends who have been through that. And fortunately with the four of us, we didn't. But, you know, even down with mother was very specific what she wanted with dad's memorial service while she was just as specific with hers, which was really helpful to Sharon and I, in terms of the service in February that was here in Chattanooga, and then what to do in the summer at the lake, scripture, hymns, who was going to do what. When you're dealing with all of the emotion related to that, that was really, I'm really thankful mother did that.

Yeah. And that's a question for all of us, if unfortunately, any of us died this week, you didn't make it to February. What's going to happen at your funeral? I mean, in the Bible that I first started using when I first got saved, it's a New King James, it's not a study Bible. In the first couple of pages in that Bible, I have all kinds of information about that because I used to start thinking about that when I first got saved. And I'm like, I'd hear certain songs, certain passages of scripture. I'm like, I definitely want this at my funeral. And that was like 20 years ago.

Right. And I think we all need to be thinking about that, not just our parents, but if your parents are alive, what do they want their funeral to be like? Who's going to say what?

I mean, again, I think the big lesson here, Kath, is doing so many things in advance. Set up real quick, and then we're going to hit the break, just like 30 seconds. Dealing with banks. Just off the, there you go.

That's the perfect response. Well, the first thing to do is with your parents or surviving parents, if you're the executor, you need to go to the bank, take the trust book in or the will. They will make copies of all the specific pages and they will have you sign a signature card as well as your parent or parents. Mark that phrase, those two little words in your head, signature cards. And we'll combine that with the bank and some not so great comments about it.

And we'll pick it up there when we come back with my sister, Katharine Graber. Welcome back at Steve Noble, The Steve Noble Show, talking about something that we're all going to have to deal with to a certain extent sooner or later. What do you do? What kind of things are coming your way when your parents pass away? And getting into wills and estates and bills and taxes and an EIN number. What do you do?

The bank, all kinds of stuff with bank. How many copies of a death certificate do you have to have? And I know this all sounds a little kind of a downer, but it's reality. It's coming to all of us. And then eventually, and I would encourage all of us, think of this not just in terms of your own parents, if they're still alive. But if you're a parent, think of it in terms of your kids.

I mean, you do not, I do not want our kids to have a nightmare on their hands when my wife and I pass away, whenever that is. And so, we want to think about these things in advance, which I think is probably the biggest lesson that we're taking away so far. And talking to my sister, Katharine Graber, and what lessons she learned being the executor of our parents' estate. Our father passed away first over three years ago, and then our mother about a year ago, and then all kinds of stuff. Just wasn't prepared for all the details that you get into.

And a lot of lessons learned there. So, I asked Katharine a while ago, when you're ready, I think it would be a good blessing, a good service for us to go over this on the air and share it with other people. Because I think a lot of people get blindsided by this. I mean, you're a few years older than I am, but have you, do you have a lot of friends that have struggled with these kinds of things, Kath? Yes.

And quite a few of my friends here, when I said I was going to be doing this a little bit down the road, they all recognized that, oh, well, you could probably really help some people. And I said, yeah. And so, it's things that you don't really contemplate and you don't think about until they're facing you.

Yeah. And then you're in the fog of war that happens when you have a parent that's fighting, which our mother certainly was a fighter. And so, I mean, how many details can you think about while you're in the midst of all that emotional turmoil? And so, that's where just trying to pass along the things that she's learned. So, thanks so much, Kath, for being here. And it's great to have you.

And I always love you and appreciate you. So, we talked about banks. Now, if you don't want to name the bank, I will. No, I mean, SunTrust. Yeah, SunTrust and BB&T came together. So, you get mixed up in all that stuff with these two banks merging. But this isn't just specific to them.

And this is local branches too. Okay. So, it just depends on who you're dealing with.

It's not a blanket statement. But signature cards and stuff, how difficult was it to deal with all the banking stuff? Well, upfront, when I went in with mother in June before she passed, it was a piece of cake, actually. Took the trust book in, made all the copies. She knew the people. And then once she was bedridden, I knew I was going to be needing this because to access her accounts. Yeah. And they couldn't find them.

They couldn't find any of the paperwork. And it was COVID. Oh, boy. And they sent me to another branch to talk to that person. That was awful. I won't even repeat it.

He was just not nice. And ultimately, just had to decide, okay, you know, if we have to, meaning Warren and I, if we have to front some money upfront for things, then that's what we'll do. Sure. Until we get this all reorganized and can. Because otherwise you can't write checks out of her account, right?

Could not. So for paying bills and all that kind of stuff, I wrote the checks out of our account. Yeah. Kept track of all the monies. Paid for, you know, she had, we had care during her final weeks. Yeah. Put all that on our credit card and just kept track of all of that very diligently for the four of us. And then once all of that was resolved with the trust and could pay us back, we did that. But that was six weeks after she passed. Yeah.

Yeah. And you're going through all that. So dealing with the bank and signature cards really all in advance. And again, before your parents, and this is the challenge because not every parent is going to be excited about this, before they start really kind of going down hill to get all this stuff out of the way.

My buddy Bill who mentioned earlier, I mean, he's chiming in because he's been an executor twice for his parents. Even though I had done estate planning, he writes, I admit that it was a little daunting because there is no one handbook that tells you what to do. Nope. And so that's your just figuring out as you go along and you're really running into things as you go along. You're running into things almost from the get-go. Right. Even just to, you know, one of the points I had is about ordering death certificates, which you really don't want to think about. Right. At that time, I mean, mother had just died and here I am having to respond to the hospice as to how many death certificates do I want and where are dads in case I need those. But it's part of the deal. Right.

And, you know, it's a really good idea with death certificates. Don't get just a couple, get a dozen. How many did you end up with? 12 of each. Yeah. For both, yeah, mother and dad. Okay.

So at least 12. And then you put a note here. And by the way, I'm working through these notes. It's kind of a bullet point list that Kathryn shared with me.

So if you want this, which I think to Bill's point, there's not really any one place, and this isn't an exhaustive list, but this is the big stuff that she experienced herself a year ago when our mother passed away. If you want to copy this list, I would love to send this to you. That's why we're doing this show, to try to help as many of you as possible. Just send me an email. This email is easy. Steve at the SteveNobleShow.com. Okay. Nice and easy.

Steve at the SteveNobleShow.com, N-O-B-L-E. And I'll send you a copy of this list. So 10 to 15 copies. And you got to have that like right from the get go, right? You do. You can't do anything without them.

So basically until I got them, which was, there was a little snafu, so it took a little longer. And so I was just paying the bills out of our account until I got that, because you can't even start to close things without a death certificate. Right.

Because you got to prove that they're no longer involved. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It's morbid, but it's the reality.

It's reality. Let's jump back a little bit here because I didn't even think about filing a tax return for somebody that had passed away. Neither did I. And as I said earlier about the estate attorney, so we made an appointment with our estate attorney, went back, who had helped us with our will. And that was just so worth the time and a little bit of money to do because he walked me through what to do in what order of this long list of things.

And walked in with Mother's Trust book and Warren and I were there. And he talked about an EIN number, which I know what that is. It's employee identification.

Right. You said that to me the other day and I'm like, I've been self-employed for a while. I'm like, why did our mother need an EIN number?

Which you wouldn't think of. I mean, I was self-employed for a long time and I had to have one for tax purposes. But what he told us was that when the person dies, in this case, Mother, the social security number goes away. And so for you to have a trust that you're going to pay out of to close things out, there has to be an EIN number for the trust so that you can handle the financial transactions. And so that if there are taxes to be paid for the parent who has died, then you do it through the trust and it's all straightforward.

The IRS actually surprisingly has a great page. Right. Okay.

So let me jump in there. So just like anybody that's watched or listened to this show for a while understands my snarky site. So it's actually not just an IRS page.

It's a great IRS web page, which seems like a contradiction in terms. I know it does. And, you know, Warren dealt with that. I did not. And he found it just really to be a great page.

You could answer, it answered questions. You could go through, I mean, there's a form you have to fill out and it's incredibly precise. You cannot have a typo. And that is something our attorney told us. Literally, he told me all the things that had to be on that form and literally said, double check it, Catherine, there cannot be a typo. Okay. And then, so once that's done, then it's okay.

Determining if you need to pay taxes to the IRS for a mother. And Warren did that, as I said, and it was a great page, walked him through it, answered the questions, helped him determine whether or not that needed to be done. So was that as a page that's specific to like, Bill, man, my attorney buddy.

Former recovering, just shared the link on Facebook live to the EIN page. Is everything there and that leads you down the road if you have a deceased parent? Yes. Oh, all that's there. Everything was there. Wow. That's good.

Yeah. And then what about car loans? If you have a car loan, a leased car, or just cars to get rid of? So the car loan, our attorney said, don't even contact the company that has the car loan until you're ready to pay it off. Just make the payments and get the payoff first and then get the title and sell.

If in fact, that's the way you want to do it. We chose for different reasons not to. And because there was an outstanding loan and just the process of going through to get it paid off and the title and the money's involved and that type of thing. So Warren actually detailed it and he went to four or five different dealers in the Chattanooga area to get to see what they wanted for. They would give us for the car. And then we made an appointment. We went back with the trust book to the first dealer and an hour later they said, well, okay, we're ready to do this.

We need all the originals. And we're like, no, I have one trust book. I have no parents to sign them. No.

And it was awful. So one of the things, whatever the signature pages are in the trust book that mother and dad had, there were several. I would suggest having several copies of originally signed signature pages.

Okay. Hold that thought. We're going to pick it up there with all the signatures and then we'll move on.

Still got some really important stuff to cover. We'll be right back. Welcome back at Steve Noble, the Steve Noble Show. A little song there from my sister's generation.

Why don't you play? Bee Gees. Just a little Saturday Night Fever. Excellent. It was the real shot of calling it my sister's generation. That was after there, but I've been bugging you about that.

Well, I think probably since I was born. Right. So we're talking to my sister, Katherine Graber today, and she and my other sister, Sharon. But Katherine was the executor on our mother's estate after our father died three years ago and having to deal with all of that. There's a lot to it. It's very difficult. Obviously, you're emotionally charged. Everything starts right away. And so just wanting to, and thank you, Kath, for your willingness to come on and share what you've learned.

Because unfortunately, I think a lot of people just have to, like you did, kind of figure it out as you go along and you think you are ready, like in your case, with decades and decades of business experience, but that didn't really get you ready for all this. So we're just kind of going through some things. If you want a list of the things that we're talking about, just as maybe to help guide you as you're dealing with this now or in the future, if you have parents that are still alive, that you're going to deal with this, either you or a sibling, just send me an email. I'll be happy to share Kathy's list with you.

So just shoot me an email, Steve at thestevenobleshow.com, Steve at thestevenobleshow.com, N-O-B-L-E, and I'd be happy to share this list with you. Anything else on that, on the car loan thing and dealing with that? I know you had another point, selling a car without a clear title. Is that because they still had a car loan on that? Well, Mother had a car loan and it was going to be a more laborious and time-consuming process to try and pay it off and sell it outright, and you had the financial ramification of that. So we just went ahead and decided to trade it in and get the cash.

Yeah, and get the cash, leave it at that. All right, you've mentioned USAA a couple times. We mentioned USAA a couple times.

What is that and what's that about? So USAA, Mother and Dad had their insurance with them. And what I didn't know... Was USAA for former military?

Former military, yeah. And so the first call was an hour and a half that I was on. And at the end of that, because of the way USAA has their program structured and their payments and just the whole structure of how they work, I literally had to go in and create a profile for me.

I wasn't going to be a customer, but they had to have that in their system before they could literally just stop the car insurance and the renter's insurance. So then I did that. And then it was a second hour and a half phone call to make sure that all of that was done completely so that I could cancel her two insurance policies.

So be prepared for that. Because I remember, it seems like you had a lot of, quote unquote, hour and a half phone calls. I did.

I did. They were an hour and a half both times. Cellular one, I was on with over an hour because they don't have any...

There's no storefront anywhere. They used to be a target. Yeah. Wow.

And they're not. And so with USAA, the plus side was with the way they set up, they sort of do a prepayment type program. And so money came back to the estate as a result, but it was probably easily numerous hours to do all that, which surprised me.

Cellular one, I was on the phone waiting for an hour and a half. Lovely. Did it once, said, uh-uh, not doing this.

I think people need to be aware that they're going to have... This is laborious. It's laborious. It's time consuming. It's time consuming.

And let me jump to something that Sharon was involved, our brother Mike was involved, your husband Warren was involved. This is really something that I don't usually quote Hillary Clinton, but it does, it kind of takes a village, right? Takes a village. You shouldn't try to handle it all yourself.

No, I think it would be next to impossible. And so it does. It takes a lot of people, family and friends.

And especially when you get into the estate sale, which we'll talk about in a minute. But with cellular one, I just, okay, I'm done. I wrote a letter, I sent a check and I said, okay, fine. If you have any questions, contact me, but I'm kind of done.

And I never heard back from them. Hasta la vista, baby. We're done with you. Yeah. Yeah. Onward. Did you find, Kathy, that you had to advocate for yourself a lot?

You gotta be kind of tough. Well, you do. And it's interesting. What I found out, Steve, which I never would have guessed is, you know, in mother and dad's trust, there were pages called successor trustee. And that's what I was. So in some of the legal paragraphs, it was a successor trustee. Well, that's not the same terminology for every entity.

And so a couple of different phone calls with credit card companies, they said, well, I need this or this. And I don't, I'm sorry, I don't remember the exact term, but it wasn't the same terminology. And I had to describe, well, this is what I have. Oh, okay, fine. Send us a copy.

So I literally made copy, you know, I copied and kept on my desktop. All the key sections, Mike needed them. I needed them. All of the signature pages so that I could attach and send the document to whomever needed it. And I did that a lot.

Yeah. A couple of things off the sheet here, because Lisa on Facebook Live asked this question, Steve or cats, suppose someone called and asked for the deceased, how did you handle that? So just communicating to our parents rather significant circle of friends.

How did you guys do that? Sharon actually did that. And she put together, she did emails. And she took care of all of that. So again, a little bit of that divide and conquer if you have the opportunity to do that. But yeah, it was really important to reach out to everybody.

But even then, I mean, I've gotten two Christmas cards this year. Right. Wow. Yeah.

Crazy. Estate sales. We mentioned that a couple of times. I want to make sure we cover this, but we got to do it quickly. But this is how you deal with all the stuff left. Right.

All the stuff left. I assumed it was going to be, we'd hire a company and Warren did the research. And it was a surprise because they had, they would come out, evaluate what was in the house. And there was a floor and a dollar figure that they wouldn't do it for less than that.

But if you met that criteria, they would handle it and they would do it, but then they would take 50% of the profits. Wow. And we just said, no. So we did it ourselves.

It was a lot of work, a lot of hours, wonderful friends who helped down to bringing us boxes to pack things up from grocery stores. And a warning to everybody. This is, I'm watching from the outside in because you're there in Chattanooga. Sharon was there in Chattanooga.

I'm in Raleigh. That is an emotional rollercoaster. Very much so. It was really hard. There were days where you just were going through the motions to get through stuff. And then depending on what you were dealing with, like mother's clothes, you just kind of fell apart. Yeah.

You got to make sure you're prepared knowing that's coming your way. You said Facebook Marketplace. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Facebook Marketplace was a really good thing. And it was our youngest daughter, Rachel, who said, mom, go online to Facebook Marketplace and join all these online yard sale, marketplace, garage sale things. And then when you set up your Facebook Marketplace ads, then you include all of those.

So your reach is much farther. And you're driving people to when you guys actually opened up the house and got a sale. But we sold a lot of her furniture through Facebook Marketplace. And again, I had a dear friend who handled that for me doing all those ads. I just gave her the pictures and the info. That was a big help. And we learned the hard way about people who try and scam by using Zelle and these sort of prepaid receipt. Sharon was actually on the phone with Zelle because it was going to go through her credit card. And they told us, no, it's a scam. And we stopped. And the first person who tried it was actually rather threatening in the emails back to me. Oh, gee.

It was unnerving. And so going forward, cash only. Yeah, cash only.

And if they can't show up with cash and pay for something, none of this stuff is mega expensive. No. Then don't do it electronically. No. Hey, I'll Venmo you on the way out.

I'm like, okay, Venmo is legit, but I don't even know you. Yeah. It just got to the point of cash only. Yeah. And then this note, distributing estate proceeds when everything's been sold.

Instead of just splitting it up, three kids, four kids, two kids, one kid, whatever. Hold some back because you had their JN, Janine Noble, that's her mother, doctor nine months later. Right. Yeah. That was a bill or something?

The doctor bill from him visiting her right before she went into hospice came in November. Wow. So if I had set aside everything, I only kept several hundred dollars, but you just don't know. Yeah. And so before I distributed it between the four of us, I let you all know that I was doing that.

And then I kept it aside just in case. Yeah. Because like you said, it was November, just two months ago. Just two months ago. Yeah.

Crazy. Have you found, Kath, that a lot of people have asked you a little bit about what we're talking a bit about today? Just nuts and bolts friends that still have a parent or parents alive? Or is it like it's just something we don't talk about?

It really doesn't get talked about much. I've had a couple of people who had their parent die say something, but it wasn't, you know, a long and involved conversation because you're going through a lot when, as the executor, you have to deal with all of this. I mean, you're heartbroken at having lost your parent, but at the same time, you have to deal with every single nuance and detail. Yeah. You just think of the way it affected me just from the outside looking in, as I just considered all the nuts and bolts and nooks and crannies of my own life.

Me and my wife and everything that we're tied to and thinking about our four kids and going, could they find their way through this maze if we were gone tomorrow? And that's why you got to be proactive. Our good friend Dave Ball was saying that just on Facebook right now is be proactive.

Get things in order while everybody's still thinking clearly and reduces some of the emotional strain. Kath, I love you. Thanks so much for being on. It's been super helpful. I know a lot of people are blessed by it today. Steve at thestevenobleshow.com. If you want the list, this is The Steve Noble Show. God willing, I'll talk to you as soon as I might. And like my dad always used to say, ever forward. Another program powered by the Truth Network.