Hello, We're Barry & Beth
We're a married Gen X couple, parents of four boys, and somewhere along the way we realized we'd entered a stage of life that nobody really prepares you for.
We're still busy raising a family, working, building, planning, and trying to keep up with everyday life. But at the same time, our parents are getting older too. Like a lot of people our age, that realization started making us think about things we'd honestly never given much thought to before.
We started asking each other some pretty simple questions. If something happened to one of our parents tomorrow, would we actually know everything we needed to know? Do we know all of their doctors and medications? Where are their important documents kept? What insurance do they have? What bills or accounts would need attention? Who would need to be contacted? What would they want us to know or do?
The more questions we asked, the more we realized there was a lot we didn't know. And we figured we probably weren't the only family in that position.
That's really where the idea for Before the Will came from.
Having a will and proper estate planning is incredibly important, but we realized there is so much a family may need to know before a will ever becomes relevant. We wanted something that could help ordinary families sit down together, have some of those conversations that are so easy to put off, and organize important information while there's still plenty of time to do it calmly.
So, we created the Before the Will Aging Parent Readiness Workbook, a comprehensive 120-page physical workbook designed to help families gather important information in one organized place.
We want to be clear about something that's really important to us. We didn't create this because we think families should be afraid of their parents getting older. We don't believe preparing means expecting something bad to happen. Actually, we believe just the opposite.
We think the best time to have these conversations is while everyone is doing well. When you can sit around the kitchen table together. When Mom can tell you where something is. When Dad can explain how something works. When there's time to ask questions, tell stories, laugh a little, and get things organized without the pressure of an emergency.
We're not attorneys, doctors, or professional caregivers. We're simply a husband and wife navigating the same stage of life as millions of other families. We created something we wanted for our own family and something we genuinely believe could make life a little easier for other families too.
And there's another side to this that became very personal for us. We're parents ourselves. We have four boys, and someday they may be the ones asking these exact same questions about us.
That realization changed the way we looked at all of this. Before the Will isn't only about helping our parents prepare for us. It's also made us ask ourselves what we can do today to make things easier for our own children someday.
If this workbook helps one family have a conversation they otherwise would have put off, find information they otherwise would have been searching for, or feel a little less overwhelmed during an already difficult moment, then we've accomplished exactly what we hoped to accomplish when we created it.
We're genuinely glad you're here, and we hope Before the Will can help your family feel a little more prepared for whatever the years ahead may bring.
Barry & Beth
Founders of Before the Will
Because some of the most important family conversations happen before the will.
