Memorial Day is upon us. The day in which we honor the dead. This year, I suggest that you honor death—your own—in a way that will benefit the living. Make a will. Create an estate plan. So when it’s your time to go, it’s easier on everyone who remains behind.

Last month, a guy I know died. From cancer. Age 63. An acquaintance more than a friend. A nice guy. A tragedy, really, taken so soon. Let’s call him John.

John has a son in his twenties who’s still finding his way, a couple of siblings, a few close friends. A house, a car. The usual stuff of a life comfortably lived.

Talk turned pretty quick, as it does, to distributing John’s stuff to those who remain. There was talk of a trust for his son that his sister would administer until the kid was more mature. Plus instructions on how to distribute what value John had collected.

Until that talk proved false. There is no trust. There is no will. The estate will go to probate. It will be months, years, before things are sorted out. In the meantime, a property sits in limbo and a young man, already vulnerable, is unmoored.

I was sorry to hear that John died. I thought highly of him, though I didn’t know him well. But when I learned that he’d died without an estate plan, a flash of anger pulsed through me. That he left such a mess when he left this world. Someone closer to John said to me, “Yes, but he died so young, so quickly.” Come on. He’d had cancer for 18 months. He knew it was serious. He knew he had a vulnerable son. Leaving his son unprovided is simply negligent.

Why are we humans so blind to the reality of our own death? What hubris induces us to leave our affairs tangled for those we leave behind? We are all going to die. And the best way to respect the ones we leave behind is to make the task of clean-up easy as possible.

Every adult needs a will. Folks with children and ‘stuff’ may need a more elaborate estate plan. It doesn’t have to be complicated. It doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. NOLO Press offers a range of publications about how to draft your own estate plan. The books cost less than 40 bucks. In my thirties, when my children were born and accidental death was my most likely way to go, I made a simple NOLO will, and felt confident that if I died, things would transfer smoothly. If you prefer to work online, Quicken Willmaker and Trust is another, slightly pricier option. Of course, if either book or online break your budget, just check the NOLO series from your local library. Save money! Save paper! Hooray for you!

If you’ve arrived at retirement age and your assets have grown and your preferences refined, you might want to do something more comprehensive than a templated will or trust. Five years ago I hired an excellent attorney to create a comprehensive estate plan that describes what happens when I get ill, and where my stuff goes, including my remains. Health proxies, financial executor, charitable distributions; it’s all spelled out in binders gathering dust in my kid’s bookcases. All so that when I go, they won’t have to figure anything out. The total cost of my estate plan was $2500. Short money for peace of mind.

To be sure, it’s equal hubris to think that when I finally die, I’ll have attended to everything pressing at the moment I go. Surely, my executors will face a few hiccups I did not anticipate. But I’m glad they won’t have to go to probate, and confident that the mess I leave will by tidy.

I imagine that John would have wanted the same, but like so many of us, he “never got around to it.” Now his son and his executors will have a long, likely painful process to get what John could have so easily assigned.

Don’t leave the same mess. Make your estate plan. Now. For Memorial Day.