Help Is Out There, and You Should Know About It: Senior Transitions, End of Life, and Loss | The Probate Podcast 2024

Most people don’t know what help is out there in life’s toughest moments. 

Sherri met “Paul”, a young man on the brink of foreclosure, and discovered a deeply moving story involving inheritance, mental disability, and the challenges that follow the loss of a family member. This encounter ignited Sherri's commitment to assisting individuals during difficult times, providing solutions that go beyond probate, and addressing the various obstacles life throws at us.

In this compelling episode, Sherri Lund, the visionary founder of Willow Wood Solutions and the heart behind Probate Podcast, shares stories that illuminate the darkest corners of life's most challenging seasons and explains why she has dedicated herself to helping people get through them. 

This is the story and mission behind the Probate Podcast.

🌟 Services Beyond Probate:

Sherri's expertise extends far beyond probate, covering:

-Senior Transitions: Navigating the complexities of senior care, downsizing, and establishing a new living space.

-Assisted Living Assistance: Helping families make informed decisions about assisted living, memory care, and funding options.

-Property Issues: Addressing property-related concerns, offering real estate support, and easing transitions.

-Grief Support: Connecting individuals with grief counselors and resources to navigate the emotional challenges.

-Senior Referrals: Providing recommendations and resources for seniors in need of various services.

-Connecting with Estate Planning Professionals: Offering guidance on planning for the future and connecting with reliable professionals.

🌟Examples of who Sherri Lund can help:

-Surviving Spouses: Guiding spouses through the probate process and beyond.

-Young Moms/Dads With Children: Assisting young widows in managing legalities while caring for their children.

-Adult Children Caring for Parents: Supporting those juggling care responsibilities, financial hurdles, and emotional challenges when a parent or parents need to downsize and consider senior housing options.

-Aging Seniors: Helping those who need to make a plan check all the boxes and find a solution that preserves and enhances quality of life.

🤝 Contact Sherri:

Sherri invites you to explore her toolbox of resources on the Willow Wood Solutions website and encourages you to reach out to her through the contact form. For direct assistance, call or text Sherri at (832) 640-2997.

📍 Website: https://WillowWoodSolutions.com 

📞 Contact: (832) 640-2997

Connect with Sherri Lund and learn more about probate real estate, downsizing, and caregiver support on

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sherri-lund-willowwoodsolutions/
• Facebook (Share your recommendation!): https://www.facebook.com/WillowWoodSolutions
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/willowwoodsolutions/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCV2fpT6kTz67ufkmMK5Z7zg/

Disclosure: The information shared on The Probate Podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. We strongly recommend consulting with a professional for advice specific to your situation. If you need help finding a professional, feel free to reach out to us at www.willowwoodsolutions.com/contact.

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Transcript

0:00

Hey there, my name is Sherri Lund and I'm the founder of Willowood Solutions and the host of Probate Podcast. It's the beginning of a new year and I wanted to hop on and tell you a little bit about where I came from, why I'm here, how I help people with senior transitions and navigating probate. And what I'm aiming for in this year of 2024. ago, I met a young man. He invited me to his house to help him with foreclosure. And when I got there, let's call him Paul. When I got there, I realized that Paul had inherited this house from his parents who had passed away a couple of years before. And that Paul was on mental disability.

Immediately my thoughts went from: 0:59

let's think about the house to what can I do to help this man. We were able to help Paul, but then my experience with him, It was as if I opened up a door to a whole new scenario of things that people are going through that I had not previously known or experienced before. I've been through three probates with my family members, but nothing like this. My mission in life, is I love to meet people in the mess. I am not afraid of meeting people in hard times. My favorite thing is to help them come out of that go through that so that they're better on the other side. I don't want people to feel stuck or alone. I love to help people find light at the end of the tunnel and get hope. I want to be someone who brings hope when someone is hurting. And so when I met Paul I felt like I opened up this door to a room full of people who were confused and overwhelmed with probate. They don't know all of a sudden they're in this situation they didn't ask for. They're grieving. They're upset. They feel overwhelmed and underqualified. And I didn't know how to help Paul. I had a couple of numbers that I could call the next day, but I felt very I don't know what the word is. I felt very ill equipped to help Paul in this situation when I want to be someone to bring solutions. That experience, once we were able to help Paul, and he was in his new place, I just kept thinking about him and people like him. I've thought about a young widow, maybe she's 35 and has two - I know of one- and she qualified for the house that she and her daughters live in, but that was with two incomes. And so now, she's trying to grieve the loss of her spouse, try to figure out how to provide a safe place for her daughter so that they feel familiar and loved and safe and all of that and deal with all the legal logistics and taking his name off of accounts. It's a lot. And I think about the older person who passed away male or female, they've lost their companion. Maybe they're on medications and they're not all there themselves. Maybe they have some physical issues that are affecting them. Probate in and of itself is difficult for the healthiest of person in their prime of life. But when you add in a grief and the different situations that are facing an elderly person when they've lost their companion, again, it's just a lot. Some older women they don't know about their finances or what life insurance might be out there, anything about their accounts. And attorneys don't do that. And I started wondering who does that. I was investigating what's out there and what is what's involved in probate and who can help these vulnerable people that find themselves suddenly in this situation. I found out that there's not a lot of books. There's not a lot of people talking about this and so it's no wonder when someone is neck deep in probate, and all the drama that comes up in the

families around that: 3:49

why didn't somebody tell me where am I supposed to go? And let me tell you, social media is not the place you want to go. There's laws that change from state to state there. They're not constant. Anyway, within a state, Texas will change its ideas on things and certain phrases need to be included to make it all legal and nice and tidy. A lot of people don't have wills. And so it's very complicated. We have blended families, which makes things complicated. And then a lot of people have misconceptions. They think that they're paying an attorney and so the attorney is just going to do all this stuff. And that's just not true. And so what I found through my lack of knowledge is that there's just not a lot of knowledge and information out there for people. And so, so I started learning myself. I became certified as a probate expert. I went on and reactivated my real estate license, so that's 1 less conversation people have to tell their story to; they can just bring me in if they have something with their Property or their house that they have questions about or need to sell or buy another one somewhere else. I can help them with their real estate things. 1 less relationship to call. We don't have yellow pages anymore. How do you find somebody that you can trust to deal with these things when you just 1 more conversation? My decisions, my actions over the past 2 years have been with that person in mind, the young mom with the two kids or the older person that's trying to figure this stuff out. The mom who has kids in college, but she also has this, dad now who's lost his wife of 40 some odd years and how does she attend graduation ceremonies and deal with soccer practice and also make sure that dad is okay? It's a lot for that person to handle. And so those are the people that I get out for. And I think about what can I do to help them. In 2023. I started the probate podcast, and I have guests on every week. We come back and I bring somebody in that will answer a burning question that might be typed out at 2 in the morning when you can't figure out what you're supposed to do and you're on the Internet: how can I find care, or what is probate in Texas or whatever? Those are the kinds of questions and hard topics that we talk about, because other people aren't. So I want to have these conversations. I want to demystify this whole process. You know, you can make better decisions when you're not stressed out. I want to empower people to know, to feel confident when they're going through this, because there's a lot of fear in the unknown, so, then we take the fear away. And then boy, would I love it if we could get people to plan more; their estate plan, you know, what do we need to do about mom's care? Her memory is starting to slip. What can we do? What do you guys want to do? Starting conversations with families? I have grief counselors and people to help with grief because grief is a real thing. It's unpredictable and it comes up in the weirdest times. And to normalize these things that feel so out of sorts, and they're not on a regular timetable, it's not linear from A, B, C and D, they come up with the weirdest times and in the middle of all of that, you're still trying to have a family. You're still trying to have a marriage or you're still trying to get a divorce. Maybe you've got COVID, maybe you need that job promotion, or maybe you've lost your job and life goes on, even though probate is in the picture. It wasn't long before I found out I had people calling me asking: I don't need probate information, but I do you have anybody, do you know of anybody you can point me to because mom is getting out of rehab and I thought I could take care of her and I'm realizing I can't. I don't have what it takes. I don't have the time. I don't have the strength, whatever it is. And so I started helping people outside of probate with care, lining up care and taking eliminating some of that stress that they feel that anxiety that they feel about being unprepared. And I would get calls from sisters and daughters about: I know that I need to put my sister or my mom into an assisted living facility, assisted living community, memory care community, something like that. They don't know what to ask or where to go. And and so I saw the need to expand outside of just the probate realm and I became certified in the fall of 2023 as a senior transition specialist. And what that means is I can help people when they're having those early conversations about, you know, I'm thinking we need it. This is the year for us to consider putting mom or dad in assisted care. I'm seeing that he's falling more or his house isn't safe or we're not close enough to keep an eye on him. Whatever the reasons are it's time to think about putting dad or mom in assisted living. Or maybe they have had the fall, or maybe they are getting out of rehab, and they don't have the time to think quickly. Maybe they need to act quickly. And so how do they fund the care? Because memory care assisted living isn't inexpensive, is it? And so a lot of times families need to unlock the equity in their homes in order to fund the care that mom and dad need. As a senior transition specialist, I can come in and help them with that. I can help them with the downsizing. So now I spend this whole end of life, senior transition that goes from considering what they need for care, downsizing, helping them get established in their new place, dealing with the property and all the contents. And then going into probate and beyond when that time comes. So with one relationship, like an umbrella, I certainly I don't do all this on my own. I have contacts that I've invested in and that I've vetted. I have conversations with. I recommend people that I know and trust. And so I can be a real resource, a place of safety for families that feel flustered and overwhelmed. I'm currently working with attorneys and families that are in that situation. Some live out of town, some live out of state, some are right here and they just, need some support and some help. And so I'm a resource for them on a regular basis. I'm looking forward. I'm super excited about what I did in 2023. The guests that I had on my podcast, the resources that I have on my website to help people in all sorts of situations, especially with grief and seniors and probate... there's just not a lot out there, so you want to find something that's current.. In 2024. I will be helping more families with their seniors in that transition time, I will help them find more resources. I will help them get more funding by unlocking the equity in their home. I'm going to help more relatives, more sons and daughters and spouses, feel more confident. This is a vulnerable time for them. They don't make these decisions lightly. And so when they decide to put their loved 1 into assisted care, I am there for them. And the people that I'm related to in my work, we are there for them. We create a type of safety net for them that they can feel carried through this process. And and I believe that they can come out stronger and better on the other side, and their loved one can too. It's amazing how they can come back and bounce, become some of them become more lively and fun again after they find an assisted care home that they can feel comfortable in. So we are here for you. I am here for you. And if you are going through a transition or you're anticipating going through one in the next year, please consider me and what I do, even if I'm not the person to help you. I'm connected now to a lot of people. I have lots- I've worked really hard to make relationships and to find resources in the greater Houston area. But even nationally, I'm a member of groups nationwide, so I can find resources, even if you're not in the Houston, Texas area. Reach out to me. You can find me on my website along with the resources that I mentioned WillowWoodSolutions.Com and there's a contact form. So if you'll send me an email through the contact form. Or you can call me (832) 640-2997. You can call or text me. That's my personal number, and I'm happy to help. I'm here to help. So again, I don't want you to feel alone. I don't want you to feel overwhelmed or underqualified. I'm here to help you with that. So take good care.