Why am I so passionate about elder law?

Let me tell you a story. When I was 7, my dad died.

He was diagnosed with lung cancer and eventually sent for exploratory surgery.

The day of the surgery I sat in the car in the parking lot of the hospital. Kids weren’t allowed inside hospitals then. My mom pointed out the window to my father’s room to me. I watched it all day, sitting in the car until it was dark. 

My mom and grandfather came out to tell me my dad had passed away.  He was gone and I would never see him again. He had donated his body to science, and since I couldn’t enter the hospital, I never got a last look. I never got to say goodbye.

But my dad had said goodbye in his own way.

When he found out that he was dying, he left little notes all over our house for my mom. After he died, she found them one by one. In the fuse box one said, “Polly don’t touch this! Go next door for help.” A note on a champagne bottle in the fridge that said, “Polly, you finished your taxes. Why don’t you celebrate?”

When he was still alive, he brought my mom flowers every single Friday. And right before he died he gave her a glass globe with porcelain flowers in it and said “I’m so sorry I won’t be able to get you flowers every week any more, honey, but these should keep after I’m gone.”  And now I have that glass globe.

As wonderful as it was that my father planned this for my mother, I couldn’t understand why he didn’t leave a note for me. For years after he passed, I would stand in the driveway at night waiting for my father to come home. As a teenager, I would think I saw him walking in crowds. I was always searching for him. I wanted a goodbye, a final word.

It has taken a great deal of my life to realize he did the best he could. But even doing his best left his son with questions:

Do you love me? Who am I? Who were you?

It’s because of this that I encourage my clients to write letters to their children.

This is my passion: improving upon and continuing my father’s legacy and creating my own.

It would be my honor to help you continue yours.

About Mr. Holden

John C. Holden is a graduate of the University of Tulsa College of Law and has practiced law in Northeastern Oklahoma for over thirty (30) years. John has focused his practice for the past twenty (20) years on elder law, estate planning, estate settlement and asset protection planning.

John is a member of ElderCounsel, a national network of elder law and asset protection attorneys. John provides “leading edge” asset protection strategies to his clients. A client then has the ability to choose an option that best suits their goals. Asset protection planning includes Medicaid and Veterans Affairs Pension Benefits. John’s mission statement continues to be “to create estate plans that work.”