Page 22 - LiveOnProjectlori with front cover

The Live-On Project

families with minor children, I saw the concern and love
in parent’s eyes when they spoke of saving money,
choosing guardians and passing on wealth. My clients
and I would spend hours ironing out financial questions
and providing guidelines to trustees, but I could not
through the legalese, of course, capture the essence of

these parents in estate plans.
I saw it firsthand, as they deliberated over the critical

choices they made during their estate planning. But it
saddened me that their children might not ever know
and truly understand the nature of the love and
parental care that went into the creation of these dry,
legal documents. These much-deliberated estate plans
felt incomplete to me based on the “extra” information

the parents shared with me, which I had no means of
capturing. What a shame that the children might not
ever grasp all I saw and heard from these parents! So I
found myself searching for a way for parents to make
known this incredible love they had for their kids.

I took some time to contemplate how these unique,
meaningful and unconditional feelings could be
memorialized. I had heard of writing “legacy love

letters” previously, but I had not written them to my
son. Something stopped me from actually sitting down,
picking up a pen and writing something down. “Great
idea...maybe someday. Who has that kind of time when
you are just trying to get through the days?” So, I knew

21