I spent three decades in nonprofit leadership, family advocacy, and caregiving support before I wrote a word of my Compassion series — and the pattern I saw over and over wasn't a lack of love. It was a lack of a written plan.

Families don't fall apart because they didn't care enough. They fall apart because nobody wrote down what they knew: where the documents are, what the wishes were, who's supposed to call whom. Compassion that isn't documented doesn't make it to the next generation — it just lives in one person's head until they're not there to ask anymore.

That's the whole premise behind the Legacy Inventory — a free worksheet I pulled directly out of my book "Compassion and Legacy." It's not a legal document (we don't prepare those — we help families arrive prepared for the attorney conversation they're avoiding). It's just the plain-language list of what your family will need to know: assets, policies, documents, heirlooms, and the stories behind them.

If you've been putting off "the talk" with your parents or your kids, start smaller than you think you need to. Fill in one section. Then send it to one person. That's the whole first move.

— Pamella Grear, author of the A Cup of Compassion series