What Is A Good Inheritance?

I have a storybook grandpa — the type of grandpa that you read about in fairy tales. The kind that inspires jolly images of Santa or a wise, friendly wizard type. He has a gold tooth that glints when he smiles and eyes that twinkle when he tells tall tales, which is often. 

When I was younger, my brother and I would spend a week every summer with our grandparents in their small town in Southern Missouri. It was a far cry from our Denver suburbs, where everything was gridded and uniform. My grandparents lived in the woods on an acre of land, and at night, you could hear the forest come alive with all manner of chirping and croaking. 

Summers there were hot and muggy. My hair would frizz in the humidity, but I was 12, and things like that didn’t matter then. In July, we’d go to the town fair and ride those rickety, whirling rides that make you sick when you’ve had too much fried food and sugar. My Papa has always had a sweet tooth, and we’d drink ice-cold root beer floats in the evenings and have cinnamon rolls or French toast for breakfast. 

Earlier this summer, I drove back with my kids and my mom to check in on my grandparents. They’re older now but still live on their own. They’ve moved out of the woods to a smaller ranch home in a little neighborhood, and it’s not quite the same. But the air is still hot and heavy, and you can still hear the frogs at night.

When we arrived after two days of driving, my Papa immediately took the kids out to the backyard to show them some of the birdhouses he’d built. He gently lifted one down and opened the lid to show my city kids a nest of baby finches. After he put it back, my son ran inside to grab his soccer ball, and my 84-year-old grandpa, always a little kid at heart, kicked that ball back and forth with my son, grinning like a fool the whole time. 

We spent the week the way I spent my childhood summers there. We picked buckets of blueberries at the local blueberry farm, the juices staining our fingers purple in the early morning sun. We drove to St. Louis and crammed into the tiny space-pod elevator to see the views at the top of the Arch before having lunch at a local root beer factory, where my grandpa had a massive root beer float, to the absolute delight of my kids. 

In the evenings, my Nanny would read Love You Forever, Like You for Always, and my son would join my grandpa on his evening walk with their dog, Sammy. In the morning, the kids would roll out of bed and climb onto the counter stools where my grandma would fill their bowls with Cheerios and blueberries. We were only there for a few days, driving 12 hours each way to make the trip, and I don’t regret a single moment of it. 

The Things We Remember

In my line of work, we talk a lot about estate planning. We talk about wills, trusts, and titling. We talk about the most efficient way to pass on money to your heirs and how to structure it so that it’s fair and legally unambiguous. What I wish we talked more about is how to leave not just a big inheritance, but a good one. An inheritance that goes beyond the logistics of leaving someone financial resources that, if we’re honest, they may not be emotionally or mentally prepared to incorporate into their life. I wish we talked about how to leave an inheritance that nourishes our heirs and endures in the ways it reminds them that they matter to us. 

My son is seven and is sandwiched between my two daughters. A classic middle child, he has big emotions that he and I struggled to navigate and regulate in his earlier years. I love him fiercely, and my greatest hope for him, and all of my children, is that he would be seen and understood by those who love him. 

A few days after our trip, a letter came for him in the mail. My kids love getting mail, so he was pretty pumped to see a letter show up with his name on it. He pulled the letter from the envelope and dutifully handed it to me to read. Normally, I’d challenge him to try to read it, but that day I gave him a pass, and as he waited patiently, I read him a letter written in his great-grandpa’s big, slanting handwriting. 

The whole time, he stared at the floor, too cool to bond with his lame mom over this letter. But as I shared that his great-grandpa really enjoyed their quiet evening walks together, that he was so proud of him, and that he loved him, I saw my son’s mouth quirk into a little smile. When I finished, I folded the letter up and handed it back to him, and he cradled it like it was something sacred. In real time, I witnessed my son receiving a good inheritance. 

What We Leave Behind Isn’t Just Financial

Your estate plan matters. It’s important to acknowledge that, especially if you have young children. I know it’s expensive and wildly uncomfortable to face your mortality, but please have an estate plan in place, not just because probate is expensive and time consuming and a real bummer for executors, but because having a clear plan for how you want your worldly goods to be handled and who you want to care for your children in the event something happens to you is a really big deal. 

And, wherever you are in life, I hope you also hear that a good inheritance is not just a large account balance. A good inheritance is time spent being present, making memories, sharing your values with your loved ones, and being curious about their own. A good inheritance is being clear about what you have planned for your inheritance, giving your heirs time to digest that, and hopefully helping them build their own lives in such a way that they will thrive with or without a large financial windfall from you. 

My son is going to cherish that letter from his grandpa. He’s already stashed it somewhere safe in his room. All it cost was paper and a stamp, but the value of someone caring about you, cherishing time with you, and telling you that they love you is great, and to me, that is a good and worthy inheritance.