[Sam B]

A bit heavy this one, but it's something that often preoccupies me, as I do love to worry. And I wondered if any of you who have been here for a bit had similar thoughts.

I really worry/wonder what would happen to us if something really bad happened. E.g. if J got ill or was in an accident and died - what would I do, how would I cope? I mean I know lots of people here, but I haven't really got any deep friendships yet, not like my long standing ones in the UK, and there's no family to support me. And where would I bury him - here or in the UK? Would I return? I don't think so, because the kids think this is home, but who would be here for me? And how would his family feel about me burying him here.... How would all the people that care about him be able to come to his funeral if it's here?

Even worse, what if we both died? I have an arrangement in my will for my best friend in the UK to have the kids, but think what an upheaval for them that would be now. And who would make all the arrangements to get us all back. I don't know anyone nearly well enough here to ask them to take over this from my best friend in the UK.

What if one of the kids got seriously ill, and we had no family or deep friendships to call on for support.

I hope obviously that these situations never arise, but what if they do? I feel like we are nearly past the point of no return, in that we are so settled here, and the kids in particular think of it as home. But we don't have anything like the support networks built up here, and we probably never will - family is good for unconditional support after all.

Sorry to be so morbid, but what are your thoughts?

[Nienke]

The same thoughts cross my mind now and then, but I still don't know what I would do.
We do have life insurance in place so at least neither of us would have to sell the house or get into financial hardship if we would decide to stay, we do have family in the Netherlands that will take in our son in case both of us die. Other than that I think I'll just cross that bridge when I (hopefully never) get there. There's no way of knowing how you will feel in such a situation and whether or not you would want to return to your family in your country of origin or want to stay here.
I will however, when I find the right family here (or have known them a bit longer :o ), change guardianship of my son to someone here in New Zealand. The longer we live here the more this is going to be his home, and I don't want him pulled out of everything he knows when having lost both his parents.

[BaldyBeardyBloke]

I have thought about these things too.

I have no answers either. I think it's a cross that bridge when you get to it situation really. You can't possibly anticipate the exact circumstances, so planning in detail is pointless.

I think you have to trust those that you have named in your will will do the best for whomever is left.

As for an OH death, I would bury PP here (NZ) as she is part of the nuclear family that lives here. The kids and I would want to have the opportunity to have regular access to her resting place and we are the ones who would be most affected by it.

No I wouldn't go back, here is home for me and kids now. Some family may want to come here for funeral/paying respects etc, but I would hope life insurance would help fund that trip for anyone who would struggle to fund it themselves.

Would be interesting telling the MIL, if she were still around. She would probably expect me to bring kids back to UK, but she can go get *****d.

[jubjub]

Sam we have the same dilemma, mainly if both of us were to die... poor AJ would have his life turned upside down as it is, but he would also end up having to be shipped back to the UK to live with ???? we dunno who! there is no-one here for him... apart from in a caring capacity until our choice of legal guardian could make the journey!

Scarey huh?

[willsken]

Same for me. Here is definitely home for us and I wouldn't go back to the UK. OH would be buried here so we could visit him and continue to nag on a regular basis.;)

I would help pay for the flights of close family who couldn't afford to pay themselves. As for the support issue, I guess I'm very luck in that my UK best friend is heading here to live later in the year.

If we both died I would imagine the boys would have little choice but to head back to family in the UK.

[pieeater]

I don't think you are being morbid at all.All these thoughts have crossed my mind in my time here.We have no reliable support network here either.We're keen motorcyclists and as often as we can manage my wife I and go out for rides for the day.Somtimes when I'm riding quite hard I start to think of the consequences of us crashing and being killed.I imagine a policeman meeting the kids when they get off the scool bus and giving them the news.It doesn't bear thinking about.So I try not to.Makes me slow down a bit and be very careful though.

[peebles16]

Thanks for posting this SamB as thought it was only me who had these kind of thoughts.. OH keeps telling me not to be morbid but we still discuss it. Good reminder to on wills as our's are all UK based and don't really cover what would happen to the kids alhough think my mother would be determined to take them :no

Like most folks no real answers yet but I actually think it's healthy to have these discussions and thoughts :yes

Karenx

[pinkpiggy]

It's something OH (BBB) and I have thought about a lot and fortunately we both agree that home is here and this is where we would want to be buried. However if we were to die at the same time, the children would, at this point in time return to the UK to live with their aunty and uncle. The longer we are in NZ though the harder it will be for them to do this but as with most people it is currently our only option.

Our only hope is that they will be old enough to look after themselves should the situation arise.

[shakyle2906]

Its a tricky one! but something thats always in the back of our minds, mine especially........

I worry more so about our son, especially if somehting happened to us both.

Need to sort wills out and fast.

I dont think i would go back to the UK if OH went first, would stay here as we love it and are so happy.

I think its a bridge that you cross when it happens.

Sharon
x

[Familyofmonkeys]

We worry about this one a lot too :(

If either of us died, we have always said we would want to be cremated....I don't ever want my family to feel obliged to visit/maintain a grave and feel the guilt of moving elsewhere at some point later in their lives. I also would not want to be remembered as a grave either, instead as me...a happy memory!
I believe that if either one of us were left alone with the kids we would manage however difficult it was...we are both quite strong people in that respect, but it would be very hard financially if it was just me as my earning potential is alot less than OH.

As for both of us dying...that is our biggest concern. Most of our family is in the UK, and we don't feel that a single one would be able to look after our children well. My family are for the most part disfunctional or neurotic and would seriously mess the kids heads up. My sister (much as I love her) never wants children and neither does her OH....they find it very stressful having kids in their house for an hour. My OH family have lots of older kids but pretty much all have health issues, poor diet by our standards, and don't value education anywhere near as much as we do. We have some wonderful friends who the kids love to bits and have been fairly involved in their lives up until we emmigrated...but they never want their own kids either so it would be unfair to expect them to look after ours. There is no answer to this one :confused:

[Red Devil]

Sam... I can see this thread growing and growing. I think it's always a big worry for any parents, but something you try not to think about too often. We're also of the concern, what would happen if both OH and I were to die... our 5 year old son would be thousands of miles away from grandparents and guardians, but that's always going to be the case either way. It doesn't worry us too much should one of us die (don't mean it to sound like that) as we'll always have life insurance in place to take care of things.

With regards returning to the UK, can't comment really as we're not in NZ yet, however based on our thoughts whilst living in France OH/myself would probably stay put wherever current residing and take things from there... like I say, it concerns us more should both of us die (dreed the thought) :no

Interesting thread :yes

[Carol]

I used to worry so much about this - I actually hated going anywhere in the car just the two of us.
Extreme I know.
But as the world's worst obsessive planner - I couldnt help it.

We have arrangements made with very good friends' parents who would "sort stuff out" for us while our friends would have the kids until someone from our family arrived.
I have to say - it's one of the worst things about being soooo far away with no family to lean on at times like that.
And we kind of just hope against hope that we never have to live through it.

[Belmont Babes]

Thanks sam, what a wonderful thread. I for one think about this type of thing alot...then, I try to forget about it and remember what my dear Mum always says "live for today as that is all any of us have got".

Sam, if ever you need any help due to illness etc please please just call. :yes

[Sam B]

Nice to know I'm not the only one who worries. And thanks for the kind offer Nat.

I actually never thought about the financial implications of one of us dying, as J is a student so he does not earn at present and we don't have a mortgage at the moment. I was more worried about how I might fall apart, who would be there to scrape me off the floor and bake me pies etc? I am strong in some ways, but I would not be strong in this situation, I'm sure.

[kowhai]

I've never before considered how new settlers would deal with / feel in this situation. Many thanks for bringing up something so thought provoking.

[marcia]

OMG I'm so pleased that someone else has brought this up, becaue I think about it sooooooooo much.

I really need to update our wills as well, they are still the ones we had in the Uk, and the same as most people on here, the arrangements we made for our children should anything happen to us both wouldn't really be appropriate now.

We do have some really good friends here who would help out short term with the boys, but long term i can't bear to think about, Emerson doesn't really remember anywhere else now, he thinks our 'old house' is the rental we had in town!

No graves for either me or Kev, we both want cremating and I want my ashes thrown in the sea, I love the sound of the waves.

My main worry is what would I do if anything happened to Kev could I cope here with the boys on my own?!

It is something you worry about and hope that you will never have to deal with.

But I'm sure that should anyone of us on the forum find ourselves in such a difficult situation, the 'forum family' would all rally round and advise, help and be there as we always are for each other! :yes

[nippa&pippa]

My advice for you now is plan ahead on "who should I send my children to at short notice?" in case of one of you or one of children need to rush to hospital.

I had that problem when our daughter was rushed to hospital in January and with no family nearby, I was struggling to think who? at short notice? to drop our eldest son off (baby came with me because he was 100% breastfed) before I remember our friends who own motel next to hospital and always at home because of motel business was able to take in our son at short notice after contact them on the way to hospital.

[Jo Jo]

I was more worried about how I might fall apart, who would be there to scrape me off the floor and bake me pies etc? I am strong in some ways, but I would not be strong in this situation, I'm sure.

D and I would be there for you, Sam, and all of my kiwi family, too.

[Sam B]

sniff ... sob... thanks Jo Jo

[pinkpiggy]

I think most of us would be able to rely on fellow forumites for help in times of needs, whatever the situation. If any of you ever need anything just yell Sam (BBB) and I will be there.

[Carey]

For quite a while this was the main reason my Oh was reluctant to commit to trying to emigrate; what if something happened to one of us or one of the kids without family back-up. But life is full of what if's and you would do what felt right in the situation, which is impossible to predict. We have decided to keep OH's brother and wife in the UK as guardians until we feel we know someone well enough to ask them to be guardian in NZ (only for youngest child); don't know if that will happen for a while.......it's a hard one, no harm in thinking about it.......even if painful to do so.

[Carol]

The interesting thing is....that yes you DO become strong.
You become incredibly strong.
And the reason you do it is because you have to.
You have no other choice.

If it does nothing else - emigrating makes you grow up VERY quickly!
NO matter how "mature" you were... :yes

That said - with time - you DO make very strong friendships again.
And I have to say - I've met at least 4 or 5 people/families directly through this forum who I know - hand on heart - that at the drop of a hat -i could call upon in a terrible emergency such as a death.
And one of those people - has become one of my closest ever friends who I love dearly and could never imagine life without them now.....if ever I could have had a sister I would have chosen her....
:D

So in that respect..... one of my "family" at least is here.

[Carey]

Wise words Carol. I think quite a few of us on here sit up, take note and listen to you as you DO know what you're talking about having been there for a significant amount of time.
Thank you !

[marcia]

The interesting thing is....that yes you DO become strong.
You become incredibly strong.
And the reason you do it is because you have to.
You have no other choice.

If it does nothing else - emigrating makes you grow up VERY quickly!
NO matter how "mature" you were... :yes

That said - with time - you DO make very strong friendships again.
And I have to say - I've met at least 4 or 5 people/families directly through this forum who I know - hand on heart - that at the drop of a hat -i could call upon in a terrible emergency such as a death.
And one of those people - has become one of my closest ever friends who I love dearly and could never imagine life without them now.....if ever I could have had a sister I would have chosen her....
:D

So in that respect..... one of my "family" at least is here.

carol your post gave me 'oose gimples' - Theres a couple of families on here that we feel the same about too.

And i do feel stronger in some ways over here, I used to run to my mum and dad at the drop of a hat, but don't tell them half the stuff iused to now, as they are so far away I don't want them to worry, so I just get on and deal with it!

:roll STILL RUBBING MY ARMS TO GET THOSE GOOSE PIMPLES AWAY!

[Steadybears]

Thanks SamB for bringing up these thoughts - I am a continious worrier - maybe Im not kept busy enough!! but everday OH sets off his 30 ks to work I think what if!!! and as we have no family here or anyone we know it worries me what would/should I do having just bought a house. Do I pack up and go back to mom and our two boys there. If something should happen both of us - what would our son do on his own - scarey when we cant have someone to call on in an emergency.

But think we better get off and do a will - guess thats a start.

Jayne

[StevieD]

Jani d here.

**weight lifted off shoulders as thought it was just me thinking like that.

I think the thing that would worry me the most is the kids going back the UK, if anything happens to us both and I suppose the quicker they are entitled to stay here 'for ever' (sorry don't do the technical terms :laugh) the better, so if they had to go back that they would be able to come back if they wanted to when old enough.

I have already thought that if something happen then friends on here and in our real lives over here would help.

When back in the UK we would struggle if we needed someone to look after the kids, if my mum couldn't do it then we were totally stuck (even though other family lived close by too - that's another story!!!) but here I have found so much help, for instance when stevie has his op on Thurs, the offers of help are FAB. The kids are going to stay with their friends on that night and taken to school by them the following morning (plus sports sort out on the weekend too) and in return I am helping those friends another time.

I can't believe the support we get here, so if we have that for something 'minor' then I am sure that for something major it would be there too.

But thanks for the reminder to get it written down, just in case.

[StevieD]

Hear Hear Mrs D although I'm not planning on popping my clogs just yet (I know, you don't have a choice but....) :)

[Debbie]

Thanks for this great thread. I think it's only natural to worry more about these thing having emigrated.
I keep meaning to review our wills but most importantly I need to make arrangements for someone to have the kids at short notice for the few days it would take for family to get here. I suppose I need to formally make these arrangements, because if something happened to OH and I, I don't suppose the social services would just let them go with a family friend.

I have to agree with Mrs D and say that the help and support we have here is great. Even for those little things in life, we have more offers of baby sitting, kid pick ups helping hands than ever happened in the UK.

Debbie

[lnz]

Great thought provoking post.

I was wondering what happens to other members of the family after I saw this tragic situation:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wiltshire/7392666.stm

I'm the primary applicant for residency. We've been approved in principle and are wrapping up paperwork and finishing current contracts with a view to move to NZ at the end of 2008. Would OH still be able to emigrate if I got hit by the proverbial bus before. Would he have to leave NZ if I died after we moved?

[castleclan]

I think it is good to consider the possibilities but also not to get too worried as chances are quite small. I also believe you would find that there are a lot of people that would rally round. I agree with Carey not to let it stop you.I would be thrilled if we actually get there! A friend was all set to go a few years back when her husband was diagnosed with cancer and died and they never made it.

[Silverwing86]

Excellent topic Sam B, thanx for bringing it up !

OH and I also talked about this extensively. We're lucky (I guess :() in that we have no kids to consider, but we both feel very strongly that we would like to be cremated here as this is home to us.

We have also covered costs with life insurance should something happen to one of us, so that any costs would be taken care of (in place of the funeral insurance we used to have) and the other can still afford to keep the house and live fairly comfortably.

I did want to mention though, that I found out from our sollicitor that if you have a will in your country of origin, it won't necessarily cover the situation in New Zealand ! So if there were any contention to a will and no will has been made under New Zealand law, New Zealand law would apply rather than a will made in a country of origin !

This seems like a very important detail and has made us realise that we should get our wills sorted out here sooner rather than later, to confirm the ones made in The Netherlands, to make sure things will really be done the way we want them to be. Perhaps something for others to consider as well ?

Cheers,
Silver

[vixxann]

ok - told my folks today that we had booked flight - as predicted - went down like the proverbial lead balloon :(
Don't want to get depressed and stuff on my happy "Flights are booked thread" and this is more appropriate on this thread anyway.. my mum said two questions... have we made a will and would I want to know if her or dad were poorly? :uhoh
Told her we don't have wills at moment here in UK and it was something I would speak to OH about. Also said of course we would want to know if either of them were poorly. But get the impression my answer didn't mean a lot.

have other people made wills concerning what will happen to their children?
We're not even there yet so its really difficult to think about future possibilities etc.
any advice?? :uhoh

[vixxann]

I did want to mention though, that I found out from our sollicitor that if you have a will in your country of origin, it won't necessarily cover the situation in New Zealand ! So if there were any contention to a will and no will has been made under New Zealand law, New Zealand law would apply rather than a will made in a country of origin !



can I ask what NZ law in that situation would be??

[JandM]

Here's a summary. http://www.globalpropertyguide.com/Pacific/New-Zealand/Inheritance

[marcia]

Thanks for the Link Jand M!

Vicky - we still haven't updated our Uk wills to NZ ones, which we really need to do. If anything happens to us we want the children to remain in NZ, but still don't know who we can put down as guardians?1 We have lots of good friends, but who would want to take on 3 more kids as well as their own? :uhoh

[vixxann]

Marcia - its a difficult one isn't it

Must confess that till my mum asked me yesterday I hadn't given it a thought - don't know if its better to be in that situation or be realistic :confused:

Just cannot think of it at moment - I have to concentrate on getting things rolling to get us out there. Maybe we'll get NZ ones once we are settled over there?? or maybe not?? :roll

[thewoodies]

We worry about this one a lot too :(



As for both of us dying...that is our biggest concern. Most of our family is in the UK, and we don't feel that a single one would be able to look after our children well. My family are for the most part disfunctional or neurotic and would seriously mess the kids heads up. My sister (much as I love her) never wants children and neither does her OH....they find it very stressful having kids in their house for an hour. My OH family have lots of older kids but pretty much all have health issues, poor diet by our standards, and don't value education anywhere near as much as we do. We have some wonderful friends who the kids love to bits and have been fairly involved in their lives up until we emmigrated...but they never want their own kids either so it would be unfair to expect them to look after ours. There is no answer to this one :confused:

We have exactly the same problem!!! People dont help me with kids or are unwilling to have them for a couple of hours at their houses! I havnt had a day off in 3 years! Im knackered tired and fed up with the guilt trips of what will i do without you. And we are still in the UK!!!!!!!:mad:

Well at least the guilt bit is wearing off -:exit

[JandM]

We have lots of good friends, but who would want to take on 3 more kids as well as their own?There ARE friends that good. We're both only children, and didn't see leaving the upbringing of our children to retired parents either side, so we asked their godparents' (chosen as the ideal aunties and uncles they hadn't got in nature) permission to be named in our wills as guardians in case of need. My schoolfriend and her husband would have been their 'parents', with the other people also having input. The 'parents' are childless themselves, but were also named by her sister in the same way - my friend used to say, 'Whatever you do, don't you both and my sister get wiped out in the same catastrophe, will you?' as that would've meant they'd suddenly gone from 0 to 4 children, all aged within 4 years of each other.

[Nettie 2]

A good thought provoking thread, and something I think everyone thinks about. My OH is a Kiwi but his (almost) grown up boys are in the UK and I worry, would he want to remain here or have somewhere in Uk for boys to visit if anything happened to him? One of my boys lives here with his wife but my eldest is still in Uk, so same goes? One of those things that I think has to be faced when and if it happens.
The will thing: We didn't have UK wills but have since made them here. Our solicitor advised us that any finance left in UK won't be covered by NZ will so will have to make separate arrangements. Ho hum, more hassle. :(

[Sam B]

Well, I bit the bullet today and brought this topic up with the person I have ear-marked as the best person to bring up my kids if we both die. She is a work colleague, an English Speech and Language Therapist. We are good friends and more importantly I like the way she brings up her children, my children and her children are best friends, and she lives locally, so my kids could carry on at the same schools.

I was too worried about it to ask her direct - so I asked her what she had planned in case this happened to her family. She has made arrangemnts with a friend here to have her kids. Then she asked me what I would do - I said my arrangements were out of date now, because the friend lives in the UK, and she immediately said - 'well I'll have your kids, I'd love to have them!'. She proabaly wasn't quite prepared for the way I bit her hand off and started talking about wills etc, but hey, you can't look a gift horse in the mouth and all that!!

So I shall be off to the solicitors next week and I'm making a will to finalise this. Then hopefully I can stop worrying about it a bit. Phew.

[JandM]

That must be a load off your mind. Great.

[SharpBlade]

Well, we just had a meeting with a life insurance guy and he advised us to think about having a will. I only thought about this recently because of this thread,so thanks Sam. It is true that we should start thinking about all the "what if"s. We have 5 young children and we do need to sort something out, if only for peace of mind.
So , yeah, thanks Sam, good for you for the lovely ending to your story.
Laura

[vixxann]

good news Sam - a difficult subject to broach but I bet you feel relieved now :)

I cannot think much more about this - it may be "silly" but I'm going to put it to back of my mind until we get there and start to settle etc I just cannot do it now. If my mum asks again then :( :roll

[marcia]

good news Sam - a difficult subject to broach but I bet you feel relieved now :)

I cannot think much more about this - it may be "silly" but I'm going to put it to back of my mind until we get there and start to settle etc I just cannot do it now. If my mum asks again then :( :roll


Ditto to Sam - well done for getting it sorted!

Vicki - if your mum asks just tell her its all sorted with your forum buddies - it will at least put her mind at ease!

Speaking personally if it happened to anyone on the forum they could count on my help! :)

[vixxann]

Vicki - if your mum asks just tell her its all sorted with your forum buddies - it will at least put her mind at ease!



I'm not sure what answer she is looking for (Well apart from "OK, its a terrible idea - we'll cancel the flights and stay here" :roll)
but if she brings it up again I'll go with your suggestion and see how it goes down :)

thank you

[Leanne]

I was having a chat with my sis today and I asked her what her plans were when I moved to NZ, since she has me named as guradian to her kids if anything was to happen to her and OH. She would still like me to be named as guardian as she wouldn't want to leave them with our other siblings. But if something did happen to my sis and OH, would I easily even be able to bring them to NZ? I can't imagine going through this whole immigration process again after such a horrible loss. I'm thinking I wouldn't be able to just put them on the plane and bring them over.

Is there a morbid stage to immigration because I had the chat last week with my mom about what if someone dies...what if someones sick... Maybe we'll just all live forever!

[Familyofmonkeys]

I'm thinking I wouldn't be able to just put them on the plane and bring them over.



Actually you probably could just bring them over on a visitors visa, and then arrange something more permanent when they got here. There are procedures people go through when they adopt children from abroad, and if you suddenly become legal guardian to family there will be procedures for you to apply for them to have PR too.

[mic'n'sj]

I've thought about this and nealy drove myself nuts. I reckon don't borrow trouble. it will all resolve itself when it happens. Ask each other what your wishes are about funeral arrangements and hopefully all this will happen when the kids are old enough to have left home and make their own decisions. And should the worst happen and you are left on your own some of the friendships here will probably deepen because of it (not the best circumstances obviously) and you will find support you didn't realise was there.

As for me If I go first I want to be cremated and to stay with my partner just cos I am soppy and want to end up where he ends up. And vice versa. As for my daughter well if we both go and she is still young then she will have to go to her Dad in the uk. If older it will be up to her. And depending on when the grisly event will occur will probably decide whether the left one stays or goes back to Blighty.