父后一年

Your passing was a shock， although I suppose it shouldn’t have been， but at 76 years old you were still living at home actively doing all the things you loved to do. You liked to say， “I haven’t retired， just changed jobs.” I think you were almost busier after retiring than before. You always had a list of things you were going to do.

Unsurprisingly， updating your will was on that list， but 40 years is a long time to have had that task waiting to be completed. Death isn’t something we really like to talk about or dwell on particularly， is it? I read recently that 61% of Britons haven’t made a will， one in 10 hasn’t told anyone where to find the will that they have made and a further 13% haven’t updated their will in the past decade. You clearly weren’t alone in avoiding the task.

毋庸置疑，更新您的遺囑也曾出現(xiàn)在那張清單上，但是那項(xiàng)任務(wù)等待了40年仍未完成，那也真夠漫長的了。死亡并不是我們喜歡談及或者特別詳述的話題，不是嗎？我最近閱讀時(shí)得知，61%的英國人都沒有立遺囑，其中10%的人沒有告訴任何人在哪里可以找到他們的遺囑，更有13%的人在過去十年里都沒有更新過他們的遺囑。您當(dāng)然不是唯一沒有完成這件事的人。

No doubt you would be 1)incredulous to discover that your children have had to apply for legal permission to sort out your affairs. You have been gone almost a year but we are still waiting for permission to be granted. We can’t touch any money in your accounts， so we paid for the funeral costs by extending the mortgage. Each month we budget toward paying your 2)council tax as well as our own.

The 3)bedsit attached to your house continues to be rented， which helps， but we can’t increase the amount to reflect market rates as it is not our property. While we wait， your property has to be maintained and we also have to pay fees for the work lawyers are doing on our behalf.

You used to say I was one of the sanest and most capable people you knew but this last challenge you have left me is almost 4)doing my head in. You won’t have realised that because you and Mom were divorced， she couldn’t be one of your 5)executors. With Uncle Frank passing away before you， both the people you nominated in your will are unavailable. Although you had told family members that it was to be my job， it must be written down to count legally.

Written agreement to pursue our application for the legal right to sort out your affairs has to be given by

人們常說，那些打不垮你的東西會(huì)使你更強(qiáng)大，過去這一年或許就是這樣的一個(gè)時(shí)期。我想了很多，關(guān)于生命、死亡以及我所珍視的一切，但是我還沒真正釋放自己的哀悼之情。在所有事情都解決了之后，等我能獨(dú)處，不用為了其他人，佯裝自己堅(jiān)強(qiáng)、能應(yīng)對(duì)自如，哀痛自會(huì)來襲。

我知道自己的孩子也是有能力的人，但是這并不是他們應(yīng)該經(jīng)歷的事情。我將會(huì)確保自己定期地更新遺囑，使得遺囑反映的是我當(dāng)前的情況。如果我選擇給特定的某個(gè)人留下禮物，我會(huì)在遺囑里寫明他們的聯(lián)系方式。我想讓我的孩子有時(shí)間哀悼，然后繼續(xù)他們的生活，保留我們共同經(jīng)歷的美好時(shí)光，而不受律師的干預(yù)或者陷入財(cái)政困難。我知道您亦希望如此，而更新遺囑或許正是您清單里的下一個(gè)任務(wù)。我并不怪您——我只是因?yàn)橐?yīng)對(duì)一切而感到精疲力竭。