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Sorry to be morbid, but if something happened to you or
your partner – if he was hit by a truck on the way to work tomorrow – would you be ready to deal with it? With Will Aid coming up next month, where a solicitor will write your will for just a small donation to charity, we could all gain peace of mind by making sure we’re ready in case the worst happened. Chanel Reynolds wasn’t. Here she shares her tragic story to kick-start you into action… 

 

Five years ago, on Friday, 17 July 2009, Chanel’s husband of nine years, José Hernando, 43, was out riding his bike when he was hit by a van. He had been adamant about going for a ride before a race the next day, but wanted a kiss before he left. Chanel had wanted him to go to a dinner party with their five-year-old son, Gabriel, instead, so she was cross. Her last words to him were: 'I'll kiss you, but I'm still mad at you.'

   The van hit Jose head-on, decimating his upper spine and causing an immediate cardiac arrest. Because he was in such good shape, he made it to hospital with a light pulse. But after an harrowing week in hospital, tests revealed Jose was never coming back, so Chanel had to make the agonising decision to remove his life support.

   Chanel has said: ‘The trauma and grief are enough to completely level you and yet, the fear about having our wills drafted but not signed, not knowing how much life insurance we had, not knowing the password to his phone so I could call his family, were often the things that pushed me over the edge.’ She didn’t know if she would lose her house or go bankrupt. She continues: ‘I said to a friend: “Oh, my God, I don't have my s--t together. I'm a smart, professional person with an education and resources. I should not be screwed, but I am.”’ If she had just been more organised, all of the extra stress and pain could have been avoided.

   Chanel’s family and friends helped her out with donations until José's life-insurance payment came through, which meant she and Gabriel could stay in the house for a year. Now they live in an apartment and she has a signed will, savings, medical power of attorney and has told her family where they can find important documents and passwords if anything were to happen to her.

  She has now launched an amazing website, www.gyst.org, through which she is helping thousands of others get organised in case the worst happens.

   Research by the Legal Services Commission suggests one in six people in the UK die without having made a will. ‘In the states, over half of Americans don’t have wills - over HALF!’ she told me.

   ‘Taking care of this stuff now takes very little effort - it really only takes a few hours. If you DON’T take care of it, you are leaving yourself and your kids far more vulnerable than you can possibly realise, and are opening yourself or your family members up for a mountain of suffering that is OPTIONAL. Sharing my story usually scares the pants off people, so that should encourage mums to take action during Will Aid this month!’

   Four years after the accident, Chanel says it feels sometimes like the time has passed in a blink of an eye - sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago. ‘Grief is a crazy ride and while the big smashy waves are less frequent and raging, they can still take me by surprise - and the kids cycle through grief differently, feeling news things or understanding it in a new way once they hit more mature levels of development,’ she says. ‘But working on GYST has been helpful to me, keeping the lessons I learned from that harrowing time in my life in a way that help me, and others, keep moving forward.’

 

Get Your Shit Together

 

chanel@getyourshittogether.org

 

Will Aid

 

enquiries@willaid.org.uk

0300 0300 013

Have you got your s*** together?

Chanel and family

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