Family Transition Office was the structure we needed, and could not find.
There were end of life support organizations on one side, and companies that wanted us to give up control, sign over the entire estate and let them sell it all for a percentage…and still wouold still leave us with a massive amount of random work on the other. We fill the large middle ground.
Both of my parents died within 18 months of eachother.
There was one funeral and all that entails: from trying to find out where everything was to the shocking reality that everything was NOT sorted like we all thought. Insurance had lapsed, there were loans. Sorting through it all was emotionally shocking. There was no guidebook.
Then there was establishing surviving care for my dependent mother who was debilitated from stroke. My sibling lived 1500 miles away. I was an IT C-level executive. I paid for contractors to help. Company, Groceries. Transportation. Entertainment. Finances. We looked online for solutions. There just weren’t any until hospice with a terminal diagnosis - and there were still decisions we didn’t know how to make.
We went through a few hospice + assisted living solutions. The first was very high-end without the hospice portion and was the worst decision we made in the whole process. After several attempts to resolve care we moved to a 4 patient group home that I learned about from my long time friend who owned the hospice company. That’s the only way we learned of that specific option. Guidance on the front end would have been life-changing.
Then of course the final inventory, estate sale, probate, creditors, banking, insurance, real estate, more funeral decisions, storage, transport (yes, transport)…by the time it was all done, and once it was all done, my network started reaching out. “Hey, my dad passed, can you tell me how…” “what happens when I can’t access my dads bank account to pay his bills?” Lot’s of adult children and partners are trying to figure it all out, and there aren’t options that help with it all. There just isn’t any guidance on how to navigate something that happens to us all.
When I retired, I continued to get questions about how to deal with the death of a parent. I decided I wanted to Help in a way that’s meaningful for families with a Family Office feel (an administrative office for families without the Family office price tag).
There’s no feel good solution to the end of a life, but there can be guidance, mentorship and help.
That’s my goal.
Mike
Coordination, not more advice.
Families usually have capable professionals and emotional support. The problem is the space between them: who has the document, who is waiting, what must happen first, and who owns the follow-through. We manage that space.