A couple years ago, and again recently, I gifted some instruments to people in my musical circle. Point being, you don't necessarily have to wait.
A good many of the tools in my shop today, indeed all of the bigger power tools, were a deathbed gift from the guy my Dad and me used to whittle on instruments with. He had cancer... pancreatic, bad. Beat it for a few years but it finally got him. This guy had done all kinds of repair work, but his passion was building F-style mandolins, and in his time he completed eight of them. He was literally carving a new top for his very first mandolin that had failed from being too thin, from his bed. There were spruce shavings everywhere. (I later finished it) A day or so before he died, he called me and Dad and told us to go downstairs and clean out the shop. Take it all, he said. Take it all now.
