Because she and her friend had sold the house they co-owned, her assets were down to two cars — one she had bought so recently that the title hadn’t even been changed — and a motorcycle, plus a bank account, credit card, credit union account and an annuity. And there’s where the real trouble began.

Texas is one of the few states that allows the filing of something called a “Small Estate Affidavit” in lieu of a will. We were blessed with our daughter-in-law’s wonderful cousin who is an attorney understood this law and drew up all the necessary papers for us. Our hands were totally tied until this was processed. Her bank accounts were frozen and a couple of checks started arriving made out to the “Estate of…” that couldn’t be deposited until we were officially declared her heirs.

Blithely we took all the necessary papers, death certificates, and more to the county clerk in downtown Dallas who couldn’t have been nicer. She also couldn’t have been more wrong. After looking over all we were filing, she informed us that we were assigned to Court “A” and would be receiving our certified copies of the affidavit within three weeks. Part of the friendly service included a phone number for us to call if we hadn’t received our probated papers within that time.

Four weeks later I finally phoned the court clerk of our assigned judge who shockingly informed me that the judge only scheduled will probate appearances within three weeks. Small Estate Affidavits were (and I quote) “…insignificant and he gets to them in his spare time, usually about six or more months later.”  WHOA! My daughter’s death with a small estate was “insignificant” to the court system? Meanwhile, the checks and bills kept coming, accounts needed to be closed, two cars and a motorcycle needed to be sold, and just cleaning up what little financial life Laura had was totally on hold.

I was incensed.

Oh, and interestingly enough, our mechanic knew of Laura’s old car and had a customer who was desperate for some transportation immediately. He came and paid us cash for it with the good faith that we would have the title ready for him in two more weeks. How do we explain that?

Although I love the story about how a prominent attorney angel friend jumped in and saved this situation for us, that could probably never happen for almost anyone else, so I will get back to the point of this whole saga.

Single people, no matter how old they are, absolutely need to have a co-signer on all their banking accounts, and titles to vehicles. And, more importantly, single people absolutely must have a will, especially those who own property and couldn’t qualify for the “small estate” route. Even a short, handwritten will is valid in Texas.

You think this will never happen to you. Yet, I have three friends who have had a single adult child die in car accidents. It can happen to anyone, not just parents of the mentally ill. Parents or next of kin just don’t ever think of what all happens if they are faced with settling an estate — even a “small” one like we had. Our bank refused to set up an estate account for us because we never seemed to have all the reams and reams of paperwork they required, even after the judge had signed off on the affidavit.  Blessedly, Chase Bank pulled through because they actually understood Texas law, but this was not until we had made four trips — long trips– to Compass to try to satisfy their requests. It was mentally exhausting. The repeated punching on our emotional fragility kept us unable to focus on any other part of our moving on with life.

We had a car “sold,” a car and motorcycle sitting at our house staring at me every day with the reminder that Laura wouldn’t be driving them any longer. We had checks we couldn’t cash, and checks that were due to us that we couldn’t claim.

It was a financial nightmare forced on us at a time when we had already had the ultimate of life’s nightmares and shouldn’t have to deal with any others.

I throw this in as an aside for those who don’t know: When you go to a funeral home to make arrangements the first time, you must pay for the entire funeral, the plot, and everything but the marker in full right then. Financially we were in the position to hand them a credit card to charge $22,000 the day her body was transferred, but I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen to someone who couldn’t.

Eventually, we sent the required certified copies of her death certificate and the affidavit to everyone she had ever done business with and started unraveling the knot of settling an estate. Until that point, we had three institutions on her list that wouldn’t even acknowledge we were her next of kin because they all had named beneficiaries.

Then our hearts got ripped open again.