Well, haven't talked much about the estate, as there wasn't much to talk about, easy stuff was kinda easy, and hard stuff was taking way to long what with lawyer and court.

But, that all got wrapped up around two weeks ago, and things have been winding down quickly. Got the paperwork over the first weekend of the month, and put things in motion. Some were relatively easy, Morgan Stanley and Discover both offer ways to file paperwork with them online, and then it was just waiting to hear from them, which happened about a week later.

Discover as per my instructions simply closed all the accounts and deposited the money into a checking account I have with them.
Morgan Stanley gave me a bit of a scare, I logged in at the link they emailed me, and my old MS stuff was missing, turns out that its a seperate site, and while they both use the same credentials, they bring up a completely different set of accounts, with no connection between them. Now its just a matter of waiting for the funds to show up.
Apple was harder, I had to mail documents to them, but they called today to follow up, and we electronically filed paperwork with them. That turned into a bit of a fiasco as I needed to set up an Apple account, but with some support from Support, we got that sorted out, and aside from a document that needs to be notarized, everything has been uploaded. The extra document is because apparently you can have a Green Dot account attached to your Apple account, and Vik did, so I gotta file for them to give me whatever is in that account. I am a little worried as it wasn't part of the court award because we didn't know about it, but we'll see what happens.
Last matter is Farmers, and that's not going as well, they can't reissue the check they sent Vik to me, only to his estate, so hopefully my credit union will continue to be awesome, and I'll be able to deposit that. Seriously, if'n you're in the #STL metro, get an account with First Community Credit Union, you won't regret it.

So what's left at this point?
Returning his mom's stuff to her family, that's more or less set up. We also need to get a grave marker for him, his mom, his cat and me, just waiting to hear back from the family so we can put that together.

At that point, the only thing left will be spreading their ashes (him and his mom) at Myrtle Beach, its something she wanted that he never got to, and I think he'd like having some of his spread with hers. After that, rest, then start figuring out the next chapter of my life.

If there's one thing you should take from my journey to this point, get a will, get a proper will, trust me, your family will thank you. If'n you have some idea of where you want to be buried and/or how you want your remains to be handled, make sure that's recorded, and if possible, prepay for it. Seriously, this stuff is harder than you think, being a spouse, or being family of any sort is no guarantee, in fact there's a good chance that it won't amount to a hill of beans. Seriously, some companies wouldn't give me the time of day without going through the court, being married matters not at all. There are plenty of resources to help you plan, especially if'n you're part of the LGBTQ+ community.

#estate #St-Louis