It’s the law: A eulogy for my dear friend, Jake

A few months back, I wrote a column on the law regarding good Samaritans. It was partly inspired by an incident in my late teens while driving with my good friend, Jake, who thought we had hit someone with his car. For those with a very keen memory, they will recall that Jake was the only one in our car of five teenagers who instantly sprinted back to see if he could help whoever had been hit.
As it turns out, we hadn’t hit anyone — it was a dummy placed in the road by some kids — but Jake’s act of instantly rushing to help while the rest of us sat confused or conflicted has stayed with me for more than 30 years. That act revealed the essence of Jake.
On Nov. 7, Jake died of a heart attack while bicycling near his home in Monterey. “Jake” was the nickname by which he was known, but his real name was Steve McDermott. He was just 54. There was no indication that he should go so soon, but if you speak with Jake’s family, he died of a broken heart. Knowing Jake’s sensitive and gracious nature, this seems entirely probable, for in March of this year, Jake buried the love of his life. Marianne, his wife, had succumbed to cancer.
Time and distance exerted its inevitable thinning of Jake’s and my friendship as our contacts dwindled to perhaps once a year. Never, however, did I feel any less close to him than I did in the raucous days of our youth. It was with boyish anticipation that I looked forward to our infrequent visits.
Our grief in losing friends or family is, of course, rooted in the loss of friendship and love. But, as a lawyer, I cannot avoid a secondary issue that percolates to the surface shortly after death: Will the departed’s wishes be fulfilled?
Relatively young people often neglect to make a will or trust. I was not asked to help administer Jake’s estate, so I don’t know whether he had a will or trust. In Jake’s case, a will or trust would be doubly important, because Jake and Marianne, much to their sorrow, could not have children.
In the event someone dies without expressing his wishes through a will or trust, the law provides the plan for distributing the estate. It is called intestate succession.
The law concludes that people want to leave their estate first to their spouse, second to their children and third to their grandchildren. In my experience, that is a pretty accurate guess.
If, however, there are no lineal descendants, as with Jake, the state’s guesswork is not so accurate. After lineal descendants, the parents are next in line, followed by the descendants of the parents. It goes on and can be fairly complicated, depending upon whether other relatives have died. The problem, of course, is that the state might assign the estate to someone other than who the deceased wanted to receive the estate.
Jake made up for having no children by spending time with his nieces and nephews. It is the caring Jake had for his nephews and nieces that makes me wonder whether his true wishes for the distribution of his estate were known. In a case like Jake’s, where he might well have wanted all or a portion of his estate to go to a certain niece or nephew, it might not happen if he had no will or trust.
Jake’s death has caused the maw of mortality to open before me. It is not a landscape I wish to behold, but I know that I must. We should all prepare for those left behind. True, lawyers regularly draft wills and trusts, but it isn’t strictly necessary to hire a lawyer for simple wills or even a fairly simple trust. If, like most of us, you have a modest estate, several publications (such as Nolo Press, www.nolo.com) will guide you to do this on your own.
I grieve the passing of Steve McDermott. I pray his final wishes were fulfilled. Goodbye, my kind and gentle friend.
Gary Redenbacher of Scotts Valley is an attorney in private practice. E-mail him at ga**@re*********.com.