Leaving a gift in your Will

Receiving information regarding a free Wills service from Alzheimer’s Research UK was perfect timing for me and my husband as we had been talking about updating our Wills for quite some time prior to receiving the letter.

It’s one of those things that you keep meaning to do but never quite seem to get around to it, maybe it’s the pressure of deciding who gets what or just the thought that you are too young to be thinking about Wills! But it was becoming more obvious to us as a family that time goes so quickly and with more of our friends and relatives suffering from major illnesses and losing loved ones it became more apparent to us that getting our affairs in order was a step in the right direction to being able to relax and enjoy the ‘rest of our lives’!

My mother in law June passed away in June 2015. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s five years previously.  We had been fortuitous in getting a Power of Attorney for June before she got ill and she had also decided at that point to update her Will to take into account changes in the family. This in the end proved to be a godsend to us as executors. Life after death became that little bit easier to deal with.

June left both myself and my husband a small legacy with a wish for us to ‘enjoy ‘her gift.  With my own mother Anita in late stages of vascular dementia and currently living at home in end of life care, we have been dramatically affected by dementia and this unforgiving condition that robs families of their loved ones in the cruellest of ways. We both felt that had June known she was going to succumb to Alzheimer’s she would have gladly given to this charity in her Will in order to try to benefit others and therefore it seemed only right that we ‘pay back’ the legacy through our own Wills when the time came. Our bequest in our Will can also be added to at a later date by contacting our solicitor to instruct accordingly.  We left the solicitors office that day feeling that not only had we been able to support our charity of choice but we had also been able to leave something in June’s name.

Alzheimer’s Research UK is such an important charity to support.  It is only with financial help from our generation that any in-roads into finding any form of cure may be found. If we can help fund the vital research needed to end the misery of dementia for our children’s children then we feel we have done our bit. Bequeathing an amount in our Will was one of the more satisfying ways that we have found to fundraise for Alzheimer’s Research UK.