Surprises of dealing with death, practical edition
December 30, 2021 5:11 AM Subscribe
If you have had to be a person cleaning up after someone else has died, what were you not expecting?
I'm not really talking about emotions but feel free to share if you feel moved (or were REALLY surprised by super weird emotions).
I'm more talking about "turns out Netflix requires a certified copy of the death certificate" (not an actual example)
funeral stuff, obituary stuff, church stuff, apartment stuff, municipal stuff, legal stuff, you know stuff like that.
um, just trying to be prepared, for, you know, stuff.
I'm not really talking about emotions but feel free to share if you feel moved (or were REALLY surprised by super weird emotions).
I'm more talking about "turns out Netflix requires a certified copy of the death certificate" (not an actual example)
funeral stuff, obituary stuff, church stuff, apartment stuff, municipal stuff, legal stuff, you know stuff like that.
um, just trying to be prepared, for, you know, stuff.
Freezer content, fridge content. Especially if electricity was switched off before you come.
posted by 15L06 at 5:30 AM on December 30, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by 15L06 at 5:30 AM on December 30, 2021 [9 favorites]
What was super hard was finding the soiled carpet and all the stuff like rubber gloves, discarded wrappings of iv line etc left behind by the emergency services. They did move the dead body to her bed before i arrived, but otherwise everything was left as it was. Thankfully the undertakers arrived later that day and took care of everything. Except they left behind her prosthetic leg on her bed.
posted by 15L06 at 5:42 AM on December 30, 2021 [12 favorites]
posted by 15L06 at 5:42 AM on December 30, 2021 [12 favorites]
Yes, everyone wants a death certificate. Everyone.
The bizarre amount of detailed questions involved in organ donation. It goes beyond health conditions. I clearly recall being asked if my father consorted with foreign sex workers. (I did not have an answer.)
That even cremation involves hassle. The hospital had to release the body to the funeral home, but wouldn't until someone signed off on cause of death. He very nearly missed his own funeral. I asked the funeral home guy, "Whose ass do I need to light a fire under so you can light a fire under my Dad's?"
The surprising reordering of relationships. I never hear from who I thought I would, such as my dad's cousins. But random old friends of his, who I barely remember, like to feel connected to him by checking in with me and getting photos.
The weirdass what the fucking SHIT documents I'm still finding in my dad's papers a decade later, with zero context, that now I'll never understand. (Like someone please tell me why I found a copy of a strange Nicaraguan woman's passport folded in with his divorce papers from my mom.)
posted by champers at 6:01 AM on December 30, 2021 [51 favorites]
The bizarre amount of detailed questions involved in organ donation. It goes beyond health conditions. I clearly recall being asked if my father consorted with foreign sex workers. (I did not have an answer.)
That even cremation involves hassle. The hospital had to release the body to the funeral home, but wouldn't until someone signed off on cause of death. He very nearly missed his own funeral. I asked the funeral home guy, "Whose ass do I need to light a fire under so you can light a fire under my Dad's?"
The surprising reordering of relationships. I never hear from who I thought I would, such as my dad's cousins. But random old friends of his, who I barely remember, like to feel connected to him by checking in with me and getting photos.
The weirdass what the fucking SHIT documents I'm still finding in my dad's papers a decade later, with zero context, that now I'll never understand. (Like someone please tell me why I found a copy of a strange Nicaraguan woman's passport folded in with his divorce papers from my mom.)
posted by champers at 6:01 AM on December 30, 2021 [51 favorites]
We didn’t have any major surprises, but there was a lot of evidence that my dad had been more compromised than we knew. We learned how much his neighbors had been secretly watching out for him; we learned that he had been making weird, racist anti-Trump signs (!? I know); and we learned that he had reportedly tried to run over another neighbor who was even more…compromised…and who was apparently adopting German nationalism as his outdoor decor theme, which my dad, who grew up during WWII, was obviously not having. There was a lot going on in that little town, for sure.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 6:13 AM on December 30, 2021 [18 favorites]
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 6:13 AM on December 30, 2021 [18 favorites]
Junk mailing lists are painfully inaccurate; for years I've gotten junk mail addressed to my brother and my mother, who have never lived at my current address (and which follows me when I move). It used to be just an annoyance, but my brother died five years ago, my mother last year, and the junk mail for them keeps coming, credit card offers, reminders to sign up for Medicaid, coupons for national car repair chains, like they're still around needing those services.
My inlaws used to do estate sales; the hidden bottles of booze, the porn, the unmarried old lady who kept all the letters from her hidden same-sex partner who lived across the street, the small caches of money stuffed in books and in pots on shelves, the weird books on their shelves which make you wonder how they got them and did they read them; when you have to dig underneath the surface of a person, you find a lot of stuff that's relatively mundane but also revealing about the person.
When my mom died it was the first time planning a funeral, with my dad. All through the process I felt rushed and the funeral itself didn't feel like it was right -- were the songs too long or appropriate, did the minister (who didn't actually know mom) actually put enough effort into his eulogy, did we put the right quotes and photos in the funeral program -- but everyone said it was a good funeral, and then it was over, so I try not to think about it too much.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:21 AM on December 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
My inlaws used to do estate sales; the hidden bottles of booze, the porn, the unmarried old lady who kept all the letters from her hidden same-sex partner who lived across the street, the small caches of money stuffed in books and in pots on shelves, the weird books on their shelves which make you wonder how they got them and did they read them; when you have to dig underneath the surface of a person, you find a lot of stuff that's relatively mundane but also revealing about the person.
When my mom died it was the first time planning a funeral, with my dad. All through the process I felt rushed and the funeral itself didn't feel like it was right -- were the songs too long or appropriate, did the minister (who didn't actually know mom) actually put enough effort into his eulogy, did we put the right quotes and photos in the funeral program -- but everyone said it was a good funeral, and then it was over, so I try not to think about it too much.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:21 AM on December 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
On death certificates, not just the number of places that want one, but the number of copies they want, and the slowness of the town to produce them.
Getting a life insurance payout took much longer than I anticipated.
Pressure from the retirement home to evacuate very quickly.
On the emotional side, the sudden loss of knowledge. After my grandmother died, we came across some snapshots, and knew they was no possible way to ID the subjects.
posted by SemiSalt at 6:25 AM on December 30, 2021 [12 favorites]
Getting a life insurance payout took much longer than I anticipated.
Pressure from the retirement home to evacuate very quickly.
On the emotional side, the sudden loss of knowledge. After my grandmother died, we came across some snapshots, and knew they was no possible way to ID the subjects.
posted by SemiSalt at 6:25 AM on December 30, 2021 [12 favorites]
1. I was staggered at the number of decisions that needed to be made when helping to plan my mom's funeral. What style of flowers for the casket? What should we print on the prayer cards? How many viewings? How long? Music for the service? Readers and gifts? Post funeral baked meats? Who is officiating the service?
2. Returning the library books after her death and closing her account. She had been a member of that library for 40+ years. I remember that the librarian was very, very kind. There was some sorting out to do, as one of the books in the pile had never been officially checked out of the collection.
3. I did the initial sort through of my mom's possessions. Most of it was reasonably easy, but the thing that stopped me in my tracks was that my mom had a couple of rather expensive prosthetic breasts and I had no idea what to do with them. I felt terrible throwing them out.
4. So many copies of her death certificate. The funeral director's guidance was to estimate how many you think you'll need then, add 10-15 more to that number, as most places require an official copy to close accounts and it is apparently really difficult to get more once time has passed.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 6:39 AM on December 30, 2021 [9 favorites]
2. Returning the library books after her death and closing her account. She had been a member of that library for 40+ years. I remember that the librarian was very, very kind. There was some sorting out to do, as one of the books in the pile had never been officially checked out of the collection.
3. I did the initial sort through of my mom's possessions. Most of it was reasonably easy, but the thing that stopped me in my tracks was that my mom had a couple of rather expensive prosthetic breasts and I had no idea what to do with them. I felt terrible throwing them out.
4. So many copies of her death certificate. The funeral director's guidance was to estimate how many you think you'll need then, add 10-15 more to that number, as most places require an official copy to close accounts and it is apparently really difficult to get more once time has passed.
posted by theBigRedKittyPurrs at 6:39 AM on December 30, 2021 [9 favorites]
That Facebook scammers will almost immediately start impersonating your loved one on Facebook. Also, that Facebook comments are now all the acknowledgement of your loss you’ll get from 90% of people. It’s all very depressing and I recommend deleting your Facebook profile before anyone you love dies.
posted by Jess the Mess at 6:51 AM on December 30, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by Jess the Mess at 6:51 AM on December 30, 2021 [11 favorites]
To add:
On an emotional level, I was surprised how legitimately funny the experience was, because it was so surreal.
Sitting in a funeral home with the funeral dude and my sister and my husband, discussing cremation, and then dickering over dividing costs.
Then realizing the cost was to convert a person, who became a body, into a box of ashes, which is WEIRD. The weirdness set off giggles.
So then we started going all, "ok you pay to cremate the top half and I'll cremate the bottom half."
On a practical level, in my experience funeral home staff are impossible to surprise or offend, they've seen everything, they'll take their cues from you.
posted by champers at 6:56 AM on December 30, 2021 [17 favorites]
On an emotional level, I was surprised how legitimately funny the experience was, because it was so surreal.
Sitting in a funeral home with the funeral dude and my sister and my husband, discussing cremation, and then dickering over dividing costs.
Then realizing the cost was to convert a person, who became a body, into a box of ashes, which is WEIRD. The weirdness set off giggles.
So then we started going all, "ok you pay to cremate the top half and I'll cremate the bottom half."
On a practical level, in my experience funeral home staff are impossible to surprise or offend, they've seen everything, they'll take their cues from you.
posted by champers at 6:56 AM on December 30, 2021 [17 favorites]
To turn off the cable/internet service I had to fill out forms (plus submit death certificate) to formally put the account in my name, and only then could I cancel the service.
Don’t throw anything away before checking to see if there is cash there.
posted by bookmammal at 6:58 AM on December 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
Don’t throw anything away before checking to see if there is cash there.
posted by bookmammal at 6:58 AM on December 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
Sex toys/gadgets. A now dead friend tasked me with going to his apartment before his family got there to get rid of "things". I knew what I was looking for, but you may not. Just don't be surprised. At all.
posted by james33 at 7:02 AM on December 30, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by james33 at 7:02 AM on December 30, 2021 [11 favorites]
My dad had A LOT of things in his name only -- two inherited properties, a functioning truck, a non-functioning car -- even though my parents were married for almost 50 years. It took a lot of lawyer time for her to get everything in her name, and tearing apart the house to find the titles for the vehicles. He also had a variety of bank accounts in his name only, including some empty safety deposit boxes. Oh, and no will.
posted by jabes at 7:04 AM on December 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by jabes at 7:04 AM on December 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
Letters to her. Letters she had complained about that were kind and sweet. Also an x-ray from 5 years previously that said she might have a thing in her lungs - which wasn't treated until she was at stage 4 lung cancer. I hid that and destroyed it so my brothers wouldn't try legal action. You're the only people who know.
posted by b33j at 7:26 AM on December 30, 2021 [20 favorites]
posted by b33j at 7:26 AM on December 30, 2021 [20 favorites]
And bills from a home visit nursing service. Australia. You wouldn't expect those bills for an old woman on a pension.
posted by b33j at 7:27 AM on December 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by b33j at 7:27 AM on December 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
Seconding the sheer number of decisions to be made, large and small - not just about the funeral, but about everything. I suspected it would be A LOT, but once I was thrown into that situation it was way more than I could have imagined. Perhaps this was exacerbated by the fact that my father had not made his wishes known about what he wanted for such things. (He probably just didn't want to think about it, much less talk about it, or write it down - and who could blame him. Thank goodness he at least had a will.) And the amount of TIME just going through everything - stuff, documents, devices, ephemera... again, I suspected it would be a lot, but the reality was way more than I could have imagined.
posted by fikri at 7:29 AM on December 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by fikri at 7:29 AM on December 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
If the deceased is logged into any devices at the time of their death WAIT before logging them out. My late husband was logged into a tablet and it made many things much easier. (Is this legal? I don't know! But it made things so much easier in the first days/weeks).
Agreeing that you need way more copies of the death certificate than you expect and that junk mail for the deceased can follow you around in weird ways.
If having people show up at a funeral is important to you, make it as easy and desirable as possible. When my husband died I held his memorial at a funeral home close to his office, in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon so that his coworkers would get to leave work to attend. It was sort of a cynical move on my part, but I recognized that people like to leave work to do something different (even if that thing is a funeral), and that people don't want to be seen as uncaring by their colleagues. A ton of them showed up, and it meant a lot to his mother to have so many people there.
Things are different in the covid era, but ultimately a funeral is an event and if you have the emotional bandwidth to do so, thinking through why people would or would not attend your event can help you have more attendance (again, if that is important to you).
It sounds like you have some heads up that a death may be imminent, so this probably doesn't apply to you, but the most upsetting thing I encountered following my husband's death was the medical examiner's report. My husband died in a car crash and I had to get a copy of the report for the life insurance company. The ME report was very disturbing. There was also some local news coverage of his crash and death and that was also Not Great.
posted by jeoc at 7:31 AM on December 30, 2021 [22 favorites]
Agreeing that you need way more copies of the death certificate than you expect and that junk mail for the deceased can follow you around in weird ways.
If having people show up at a funeral is important to you, make it as easy and desirable as possible. When my husband died I held his memorial at a funeral home close to his office, in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon so that his coworkers would get to leave work to attend. It was sort of a cynical move on my part, but I recognized that people like to leave work to do something different (even if that thing is a funeral), and that people don't want to be seen as uncaring by their colleagues. A ton of them showed up, and it meant a lot to his mother to have so many people there.
Things are different in the covid era, but ultimately a funeral is an event and if you have the emotional bandwidth to do so, thinking through why people would or would not attend your event can help you have more attendance (again, if that is important to you).
It sounds like you have some heads up that a death may be imminent, so this probably doesn't apply to you, but the most upsetting thing I encountered following my husband's death was the medical examiner's report. My husband died in a car crash and I had to get a copy of the report for the life insurance company. The ME report was very disturbing. There was also some local news coverage of his crash and death and that was also Not Great.
posted by jeoc at 7:31 AM on December 30, 2021 [22 favorites]
Freezer content, fridge content . . . near the freezer content [mummified chicken pieces on top of cupboard next to the in-garage freezer].
"I've found the cat!" again mummified and flat underneath a collapsed pile of boxes in [a hoarder's] basement. Loadsa folding money: change from stores left in grocery sacks.
Different takes within family on what is proper w.r.t. coffin and other funeral arrangements. Oak coffin for a cremation?! Different takes on papers worth keeping.
The kindness, flexibility and efficiency of the funeral people.
Wasn't expecting a pleated paper ruff round my father's neck in the hospital morgue.
The teaching hospital didn't, in the heel of the hunt, want my mother's body for science - too old at 99.
It's a journey, not all of it unpleasant.
posted by BobTheScientist at 7:46 AM on December 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
"I've found the cat!" again mummified and flat underneath a collapsed pile of boxes in [a hoarder's] basement. Loadsa folding money: change from stores left in grocery sacks.
Different takes within family on what is proper w.r.t. coffin and other funeral arrangements. Oak coffin for a cremation?! Different takes on papers worth keeping.
The kindness, flexibility and efficiency of the funeral people.
Wasn't expecting a pleated paper ruff round my father's neck in the hospital morgue.
The teaching hospital didn't, in the heel of the hunt, want my mother's body for science - too old at 99.
It's a journey, not all of it unpleasant.
posted by BobTheScientist at 7:46 AM on December 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
About donating your body to science, I registered for it but being obese is not good either.
posted by b33j at 7:52 AM on December 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by b33j at 7:52 AM on December 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
The price of death certificates and the price of obituaries, even online ones. I was wholly unprepared for how much those things cost, in the U.S.
posted by cooker girl at 7:53 AM on December 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by cooker girl at 7:53 AM on December 30, 2021 [5 favorites]
Heh, my mom (now long dead herself) worked in estate sales, too, and she would have co-signed the points above.
She also said well-off decedents always left behind drug paraphernalia and sex toys; old people hid lots of cash in the pages of books; here in Utah where Mormon food storage is a big thing, there were often mass quantities of grains old enough to rot/ferment.
When my uncle hanged himself in his 40s, we had to reckon with all the dirty pictures taped up in his kitchen cabinets, the eloquent but bizarre journals he’d filled, and the weird art he’d made by selectively cleaning the cigarette smoke on the walls. Among other things.
posted by armeowda at 7:55 AM on December 30, 2021 [12 favorites]
She also said well-off decedents always left behind drug paraphernalia and sex toys; old people hid lots of cash in the pages of books; here in Utah where Mormon food storage is a big thing, there were often mass quantities of grains old enough to rot/ferment.
When my uncle hanged himself in his 40s, we had to reckon with all the dirty pictures taped up in his kitchen cabinets, the eloquent but bizarre journals he’d filled, and the weird art he’d made by selectively cleaning the cigarette smoke on the walls. Among other things.
posted by armeowda at 7:55 AM on December 30, 2021 [12 favorites]
A couple of things surprised me when my then- father-in-law died some years back.
One was the lack of privacy at the hospital and lack of, I guess, leadership from the health care team, the doctor, the family. My then-husband and I were at the hospital very, very often, as were at least two or three other family members. There wasn't any 'please step outside while we discuss this' or 'which family member is authorized to make these decisions' or anything like that.
When we finally realized he would die very soon, I (with no authorization whatsoever, but not privately or anything) asked them to make him more comfortable - for instance, he hated the anti-blood-clot leg-massage things, so I asked for those to be removed. I felt like the nurses sprang into action to remove some of the 'ongoing care' things that were making him uncomfortable. I also asked another nurse whether he could be more comfortable medically (pain management) - I have often wondered if that's why he died that night, like, was he given something powerful that allowed him to slip away more easily. Anyway, nobody asked anything about anyone's authority or power of attorney or anything like that.
(longer details about health care deleted, but it was like pulling teeth to really have a doctor tell us that the patient was actually dying.)
There were also some minor mistakes on the death certificate, like the time was off by a couple of hours, that sort of thing. I was surprised that wasn't a very painstakingly accurate document.
Also, I'm a journalist, and you might not know that obituaries can be very expensive. Like several hundred to a thousand dollars. They might charge by the word, so if you can bring yourself to say "died" rather than "earned her wings and is now seated at her savior's table" it's very worth your while.
posted by Occula at 7:57 AM on December 30, 2021 [30 favorites]
One was the lack of privacy at the hospital and lack of, I guess, leadership from the health care team, the doctor, the family. My then-husband and I were at the hospital very, very often, as were at least two or three other family members. There wasn't any 'please step outside while we discuss this' or 'which family member is authorized to make these decisions' or anything like that.
When we finally realized he would die very soon, I (with no authorization whatsoever, but not privately or anything) asked them to make him more comfortable - for instance, he hated the anti-blood-clot leg-massage things, so I asked for those to be removed. I felt like the nurses sprang into action to remove some of the 'ongoing care' things that were making him uncomfortable. I also asked another nurse whether he could be more comfortable medically (pain management) - I have often wondered if that's why he died that night, like, was he given something powerful that allowed him to slip away more easily. Anyway, nobody asked anything about anyone's authority or power of attorney or anything like that.
(longer details about health care deleted, but it was like pulling teeth to really have a doctor tell us that the patient was actually dying.)
There were also some minor mistakes on the death certificate, like the time was off by a couple of hours, that sort of thing. I was surprised that wasn't a very painstakingly accurate document.
Also, I'm a journalist, and you might not know that obituaries can be very expensive. Like several hundred to a thousand dollars. They might charge by the word, so if you can bring yourself to say "died" rather than "earned her wings and is now seated at her savior's table" it's very worth your while.
posted by Occula at 7:57 AM on December 30, 2021 [30 favorites]
Another surprise, one of my brothers broke into the house and found our mother dead. We protect each other from unnecessary pain, so when I was invited by the funeral director to see the body (I was estranged from her for years) he didn't know that I didn't know that she'd fallen out of bed, trying to use her inhaler to relieve her last asthma attack and that in that position, blood had pooled on the right side of face, so they used make-up to cover that. Also, she had no special outfits and the only viewing available was for me and 2 of my 4 brothers, so we chose a shroud - a cloth wrapped around her (I was the only one who chose to see her) but what surprised me was netting nailed into her coffin so I couldn't touch her even if I wanted to. And she maintained in death the angry resentful facial expression that was familiar to me. She didn't look at peace - just cranky.
posted by b33j at 8:00 AM on December 30, 2021 [9 favorites]
posted by b33j at 8:00 AM on December 30, 2021 [9 favorites]
In the immediate aftermath, just the sheer number of choices that have to be made, with very little information or time. (And, this is potentially after you have been making difficult medical decisions on their behalf, too.)
I think it was because this occurred during a covid spike and they were short on storage space for bodies, but the hospital wanted the body to be picked up and taken away RIGHT NOW, which turns out to require quite a bit of work and decisions to make happen. (I remain indebted to the generous advice I got from MeFi's own Coldchef, who gave me exactly the information I needed to know about what to say and ask for.)
Also, even assuming that the deceased left money in their bank accounts (which not everyone does), it takes time before those funds can be accessed, so there are the decisions about how to cover significant expenses (like, say, funeral home costs, or all those death certificates) in the meantime.
Seeing who steps up (for practical support or for "being there" or whatever) and who doesn't is illuminating; it certainly changed my opinion of a few people. At the same time, death is hard and most people are understandably uncomfortable with it, so I think developing compassion for people who don't have enough spoons of their own already is important, too, even when it leaves you hanging.
About the death certificates: that turned out to be totally random, with plenty of places being fine with just a scanned copy or nothing at all, and others being insistent on a non-returnable physical copy. They are expensive to get and it takes a while from making the request to getting them, and I ended up with more than I needed.
If the person maintained even semi-decent online security (like, not using the same password everywhere) and they didn't write those down, there are things you will probably never be able to get access to, in my experience.
Emotions: because of how the pandemic has disrupted so many things, "lingering grief" or "prolonged grief" are more of a thing now than in the recent past. Here is an example article about it in the NYT. This may or may not be relevant to your own situation, but it is part of the general situation these days.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:00 AM on December 30, 2021 [9 favorites]
I think it was because this occurred during a covid spike and they were short on storage space for bodies, but the hospital wanted the body to be picked up and taken away RIGHT NOW, which turns out to require quite a bit of work and decisions to make happen. (I remain indebted to the generous advice I got from MeFi's own Coldchef, who gave me exactly the information I needed to know about what to say and ask for.)
Also, even assuming that the deceased left money in their bank accounts (which not everyone does), it takes time before those funds can be accessed, so there are the decisions about how to cover significant expenses (like, say, funeral home costs, or all those death certificates) in the meantime.
Seeing who steps up (for practical support or for "being there" or whatever) and who doesn't is illuminating; it certainly changed my opinion of a few people. At the same time, death is hard and most people are understandably uncomfortable with it, so I think developing compassion for people who don't have enough spoons of their own already is important, too, even when it leaves you hanging.
About the death certificates: that turned out to be totally random, with plenty of places being fine with just a scanned copy or nothing at all, and others being insistent on a non-returnable physical copy. They are expensive to get and it takes a while from making the request to getting them, and I ended up with more than I needed.
If the person maintained even semi-decent online security (like, not using the same password everywhere) and they didn't write those down, there are things you will probably never be able to get access to, in my experience.
Emotions: because of how the pandemic has disrupted so many things, "lingering grief" or "prolonged grief" are more of a thing now than in the recent past. Here is an example article about it in the NYT. This may or may not be relevant to your own situation, but it is part of the general situation these days.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:00 AM on December 30, 2021 [9 favorites]
The sheer quantity of old photos with people in them I didn't know. My mother had also held on to a box of my stepfather's things, including old photos with people in them I was never going to know, and his daughter was unreachable by the time I finally looked at them.
Why the junk mail people decided to start sending stuff addressed to her at my house, where she never lived, ever.
How many insurance policies and annuities she had that she hadn't remembered.
How kind her financial advisor and her attorney were to me, for which I was grateful, because my siblings at one point were suspicious of my motives as the local daughter. My siblings went and dealt with the financial advisor and the attorney directly, and as a result both professionals became more strongly allied to me.
How sad I still am from time to time thirteen years later.
How happy I was when I finally dreamed of her still being alive, because in the dream she was too busy to talk to me right then and I realized in the dream that she had lived her own lilfe and it wasn't mine to relive.
posted by Peach at 8:22 AM on December 30, 2021 [25 favorites]
Why the junk mail people decided to start sending stuff addressed to her at my house, where she never lived, ever.
How many insurance policies and annuities she had that she hadn't remembered.
How kind her financial advisor and her attorney were to me, for which I was grateful, because my siblings at one point were suspicious of my motives as the local daughter. My siblings went and dealt with the financial advisor and the attorney directly, and as a result both professionals became more strongly allied to me.
How sad I still am from time to time thirteen years later.
How happy I was when I finally dreamed of her still being alive, because in the dream she was too busy to talk to me right then and I realized in the dream that she had lived her own lilfe and it wasn't mine to relive.
posted by Peach at 8:22 AM on December 30, 2021 [25 favorites]
On the emotional front, I’ll add this: death has a funny way of highlighting which survivors just cannot deal with someone else being the center of attention for any length of time. When my MIL’s brother was dying, my FIL stood at the bedside basically trying to pull focus back onto himself — making stupid jokes about “loud snoring” (that’s a death rattle, Einstein), undercutting every nice thing anybody had to say to/about the dying man (who was right there).
My mom knew a lot of self-involved people who came over after her death to cry on our shoulders about how hard this was for them, or the bummer stuff going on in their own lives.
Boneheaded foot-in-mouth awkwardness is one thing, but if people on the outside use your loved one’s death as a backdrop for their own narcissism, you have my permission to show them the exit. It’s also OK to limit access for people you know are going to act this way.
posted by armeowda at 8:23 AM on December 30, 2021 [15 favorites]
My mom knew a lot of self-involved people who came over after her death to cry on our shoulders about how hard this was for them, or the bummer stuff going on in their own lives.
Boneheaded foot-in-mouth awkwardness is one thing, but if people on the outside use your loved one’s death as a backdrop for their own narcissism, you have my permission to show them the exit. It’s also OK to limit access for people you know are going to act this way.
posted by armeowda at 8:23 AM on December 30, 2021 [15 favorites]
Note: I scanned all the photos with people in them that were recognizable, and put them in a Google Photos album that I shared with my brother and sister. That didn't happen until years later, and I know they probably wouldn't spend much time looking at them, but I was happy that it was off my plate. I mailed all my mother's old sermons to my brother, just to get them out of the house.
posted by Peach at 8:24 AM on December 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Peach at 8:24 AM on December 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
One thing that I came to understand from cleaning out two family member's homes is how long it took, and how hard it was to get rid of things, and a lot of stuff that someone somewhere might have wanted (or even been emotionally or truly valuable) were super hard to get rid of and a lot of stuff just went into the trash. We passed on or sold as much as we could from both houses- one was a hoarder and the other was insanely neat and tidy, but at both places so much just got trashed. It has made me start either giving stuff away that is still useful, and trashing projects and other stuff that might not get done and I don't want my kids to have to deal with.
One of the first and most important thing to find is a social security number, and no clear on the legality, but pulling credit reports to understand any debt/accounts that deceased may have.
And I haven't dealt with this myself, but have watched my mom go through some estates, one which the whole family fought about, and in the end most of the money just went to lawyers, and the other where she didn't try and prove that her brother wanted her to have everything (which he did but she had no legal documentation.) And finally, not to count the money before all is said and done. The family home her brother owned that at certain points had been worth a million when New Yorker's bought up land in their part of CT, but when it sold it when for a quarter of that.
posted by momochan at 8:25 AM on December 30, 2021 [7 favorites]
One of the first and most important thing to find is a social security number, and no clear on the legality, but pulling credit reports to understand any debt/accounts that deceased may have.
And I haven't dealt with this myself, but have watched my mom go through some estates, one which the whole family fought about, and in the end most of the money just went to lawyers, and the other where she didn't try and prove that her brother wanted her to have everything (which he did but she had no legal documentation.) And finally, not to count the money before all is said and done. The family home her brother owned that at certain points had been worth a million when New Yorker's bought up land in their part of CT, but when it sold it when for a quarter of that.
posted by momochan at 8:25 AM on December 30, 2021 [7 favorites]
Nthing the advice about needing multiple copies of death certificates. Pro tip on that though, I got a really good quality scan made of the death certificate. Some places wound up accepting that instead of needing the actual paper copy, so I started asking routinely about that before just sending the paper one.
I was the backup executor for my Dad, my Mom was the first named executor. Dad had never changed that in his will after Mom died. I had to dig up her death certificate in Dad's papers in order to be named the official executor for him. Thank god he saved hers, since she died 5 years before him.
My credit cards got a workout paying for stuff like funeral expenses, because it took a while to get access to Dad's money and to get the insurance payouts.
I thought about just getting a lawyer to handle the estate, and talked to lawyer about it, but he convinced me it would be cheaper to do it myself. He was correct, but if I had to do it over again and could afford it I would definitely go the lawyer route. It was emotionally difficult to deal with the estate. Like jeoc, Dad died as the result of a car accident, and dealing with the police, lawyers, various auto insurance companies, etc., etc., and well as all the other "routine" estate stuff, the funeral, clearing out his place ... Even with my sister and her husband and my husband helping, and some help from Dad's friends, it was just a lot. My sister fell apart a bit, because they had been very close, so a ton of stuff really just had to be mine to deal with, and I had to keep it together for everyone else.
I was the executor but he lived in New Jersey and I live in Virginia. Banks wanted me to come in person to close his accounts. I was fortunate that his banks were national, so I could go to a branch in my area to close accounts instead of having to go back to New Jersey for that.
My parents were cremated and buried in a Veteran's cemetery (by Dad's choice), and the cemetery has a ton of rules. All the headstones have to look a certain way, for example, with only a few options for personalization. Dad was an adamant atheist and I had to insist hard that they not include a cross on his marker. The person taking the info. was really reluctant to do that.
We had the ashes of two of their cats to deal with, and we knew my parents would want those to be with them, but again, cemetery rules. We wound up stealthily sneaking the cat ashes in and managed to bury them with my parents.
posted by gudrun at 8:26 AM on December 30, 2021 [16 favorites]
I was the backup executor for my Dad, my Mom was the first named executor. Dad had never changed that in his will after Mom died. I had to dig up her death certificate in Dad's papers in order to be named the official executor for him. Thank god he saved hers, since she died 5 years before him.
My credit cards got a workout paying for stuff like funeral expenses, because it took a while to get access to Dad's money and to get the insurance payouts.
I thought about just getting a lawyer to handle the estate, and talked to lawyer about it, but he convinced me it would be cheaper to do it myself. He was correct, but if I had to do it over again and could afford it I would definitely go the lawyer route. It was emotionally difficult to deal with the estate. Like jeoc, Dad died as the result of a car accident, and dealing with the police, lawyers, various auto insurance companies, etc., etc., and well as all the other "routine" estate stuff, the funeral, clearing out his place ... Even with my sister and her husband and my husband helping, and some help from Dad's friends, it was just a lot. My sister fell apart a bit, because they had been very close, so a ton of stuff really just had to be mine to deal with, and I had to keep it together for everyone else.
I was the executor but he lived in New Jersey and I live in Virginia. Banks wanted me to come in person to close his accounts. I was fortunate that his banks were national, so I could go to a branch in my area to close accounts instead of having to go back to New Jersey for that.
My parents were cremated and buried in a Veteran's cemetery (by Dad's choice), and the cemetery has a ton of rules. All the headstones have to look a certain way, for example, with only a few options for personalization. Dad was an adamant atheist and I had to insist hard that they not include a cross on his marker. The person taking the info. was really reluctant to do that.
We had the ashes of two of their cats to deal with, and we knew my parents would want those to be with them, but again, cemetery rules. We wound up stealthily sneaking the cat ashes in and managed to bury them with my parents.
posted by gudrun at 8:26 AM on December 30, 2021 [16 favorites]
My mother was surprised to learn that, because all the hospital bills were in my dad's/her husband's name, she had absolutely no legal obligation to pay them. (This was not a joint/community property state, nor did they reside in one.) Luckily she had happened to mention how much she allegedly owed to me, since the hospital had of course cheerfully continued to send invoices, and a lawyer confirmed my suspicion that they in fact had nothing on her.
I have been surprised how people came out of the woodwork to tell me stories they'd kept secret for a long long time. I am still unconvinced that if one was supposed to keep something private during a person's life, sharing it afterward is fair game, but apparently others disagree. Some I am not even sure really happened though, and those especially I do not understand what the point of telling me was, because now they just vaguely bother me as unsolvable mysteries.
posted by teremala at 8:41 AM on December 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
I have been surprised how people came out of the woodwork to tell me stories they'd kept secret for a long long time. I am still unconvinced that if one was supposed to keep something private during a person's life, sharing it afterward is fair game, but apparently others disagree. Some I am not even sure really happened though, and those especially I do not understand what the point of telling me was, because now they just vaguely bother me as unsolvable mysteries.
posted by teremala at 8:41 AM on December 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
Last surprise: I have not talked to my mother in 20 years now, 10 years before she died. But I still get nightmares where I am supposed to be the responsible one in sorting out the second last house she lived in, and she is bitchy and unhelpful in the packing up and repairs and garbage. That never happened in real life, but I would estimate at least 60 dreams when I'm being the helpful daughter and she dismisses me or deliberately sabotages my help. Twenty years after I've spoken to her, ten years since her death and I still get these nightmares where I wake myself up by shouting at her which I never did in my life. I'm sorry if I hijacked this question with my mental illness.
posted by b33j at 8:41 AM on December 30, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by b33j at 8:41 AM on December 30, 2021 [13 favorites]
After my mother's death, we were tasked to get rid of her clothing ASAP. What we wear holds our shapes and smells, and those two days were dancing with ghosts. If there's an estate sale or second hand store willing to take on that task, just hand the responsibility over to them.
posted by Jesse the K at 8:50 AM on December 30, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by Jesse the K at 8:50 AM on December 30, 2021 [6 favorites]
I was surprised at how banks were ill prepared and clueless. When we showed up saying this person had died, what do we need to do, I figured there would be some documentation about how to manage it, but we got a lot of blank stares and confused looks.
I will say Bank of America was extremely competent, Citizen's bank was terrible. We wanted to close the account, after multiple visits and several phone calls, we just gave up. ("Bring a death cert to a branch." ME: we've done this three times, why would I do it again?" ) They eventually sent it to collections and talking to them quickly resolved it.
It was amazing how people right away just gave us money--the person who died was a single dad with a mortgage, car payments, etc., so that helped keep things going for the first few months.
Some family friction and differences did erupt. When my brother died, one sibling wanted the obituary to state his name which was technically correct, but not what my brother went by and did not like. I really pushed back on that, and another sibling sided with me, so it went the way I thought was right. But I was ready to never talk to that sibling (who I do love and am close to) again, I was so furious. I realized even then it was about my love and loss and not what the stupid obit said, but I was livid. That was kind of scary.
When my mother died, we had three days to clear out the place without paying another three months rent!!! That was ridiculous, but we rallied the troops and made it happen. My mother had assigned people most of the choice knick knacks and art -work, but even then, it was super annoying to have the grabbiest of siblings claiming stuff left and right. I just had to leave, I couldn't deal.
posted by rhonzo at 8:56 AM on December 30, 2021 [9 favorites]
I will say Bank of America was extremely competent, Citizen's bank was terrible. We wanted to close the account, after multiple visits and several phone calls, we just gave up. ("Bring a death cert to a branch." ME: we've done this three times, why would I do it again?" ) They eventually sent it to collections and talking to them quickly resolved it.
It was amazing how people right away just gave us money--the person who died was a single dad with a mortgage, car payments, etc., so that helped keep things going for the first few months.
Some family friction and differences did erupt. When my brother died, one sibling wanted the obituary to state his name which was technically correct, but not what my brother went by and did not like. I really pushed back on that, and another sibling sided with me, so it went the way I thought was right. But I was ready to never talk to that sibling (who I do love and am close to) again, I was so furious. I realized even then it was about my love and loss and not what the stupid obit said, but I was livid. That was kind of scary.
When my mother died, we had three days to clear out the place without paying another three months rent!!! That was ridiculous, but we rallied the troops and made it happen. My mother had assigned people most of the choice knick knacks and art -work, but even then, it was super annoying to have the grabbiest of siblings claiming stuff left and right. I just had to leave, I couldn't deal.
posted by rhonzo at 8:56 AM on December 30, 2021 [9 favorites]
Being the son who moved to the opposite coast I didn't get to participate in cleaning out the house but one thing my brothers found they thought remarkable was a bottle of teeth. Thinking this over, later I realized the Tooth Fairy must do something with them; being a bit of a hoarder we now know my mom just saved 'em.
posted by Rash at 8:59 AM on December 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Rash at 8:59 AM on December 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
After my father died, 10 years ago, the most surprising thing turned out to be dozens of insurance policies he had taken out and paid for, mostly small amount life insurance, for family but also for people we did not know who they were to him in life. As he died intestate and legally insolvent, none were claimed.
Several months after his death, my brother (who is easy to find online) received a call from a woman claiming that some quite explizit poetry our dad had published was about her, and did he want to meet. He did not.
His funeral was arranged by his second wife. What was especially awkward was the number of ex-girlfriends/affairs present. We did not mind as we always knew, but second wife was very surprised.
She also had had no idea about the amount of debt he had accumulated.
posted by 15L06 at 8:59 AM on December 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
Several months after his death, my brother (who is easy to find online) received a call from a woman claiming that some quite explizit poetry our dad had published was about her, and did he want to meet. He did not.
His funeral was arranged by his second wife. What was especially awkward was the number of ex-girlfriends/affairs present. We did not mind as we always knew, but second wife was very surprised.
She also had had no idea about the amount of debt he had accumulated.
posted by 15L06 at 8:59 AM on December 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
Discovering a locked metal box of actual photographs of naked people, my father as a younger, thinner man, and assorted women (but not together) and obviously surreptitious photos of tan women on a nude beach in California in the 1970s, and all that entails. Learning that my father had been, as we suspected, much more unfaithful to my mother than we realized and wondering if I have any half-siblings out there in the world. Realizing that he told me brothers a lot more stories about his past than he shared with me, that although he probably loved me, he didn't necessarily like me a lot. Understanding that it has been seven years and I still think about this.
posted by mecran01 at 9:22 AM on December 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by mecran01 at 9:22 AM on December 30, 2021 [8 favorites]
Facebook requires a death certificate to close an account and if you can’t get into their account and change the settings at least, know that you will continue to receive cheery little reminders to “send them good thoughts!” on their birthday.
Figuring out what to do with their day-to-day belongings. What do you do with the toiletries? The bathrobe? How do you negotiate among family members who are at varying ends of the spectrum in terms of “get it out of my sight immediately” and “don’t move anything”?
If your person has any kind of appointments coming up, be prepared to either cancel those or field the reminder calls. My mom seemed to think that someone would send some kind of general notice to all of a patient’s doctors that they had died but that wasn’t our experience.
You’re supposed to (in my culture) write thank you notes for all the flowers and cards, etc. Do yourself a favor and get some that are pre-printed with “the family of X thanks you for your kindness at this difficult time” or whatever. You are not going to be in any shape for personalized correspondence, no matter how much Miss Manners insists that it’s the only correct way to handle it.
Notifying people. You’ll probably need to get the word out somehow. Don’t take anyone’s reaction personally. News like this can make people react in bizarre ways, especially if they have been traumatized by something else, so maybe enlist a friend to help with calling people if you can. You will likely not be up for being on the receiving end of a misplaced rant about where the funeral is being held and how the deceased hated that city.
Everyone’s emotions are going to run high and it’s going to come out in weird ways. Someone will be screaming about hummus. Someone will boil over with rage about the funeral director’s choice of words. Try and let it go if you can.
I only have experience with a large chain of mortuaries in the U.S., but be aware that you may be presented with options for a lot of memorial items you can purchase through the funeral home, such as portraits or jewelry. Just know that if you don’t buy these things or if they don’t help you, it doesn’t mean that you don’t care about the person who has died. Conversely, if you don’t like what the funeral home is selling, you’re not stuck with those choices—there is an entire galaxy of mementos out there that will suit your tastes. I was definitely not prepared for the brochures about fingerprint pendants, etc. and it was one more sad decision to have to make.
posted by corey flood at 9:32 AM on December 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
Figuring out what to do with their day-to-day belongings. What do you do with the toiletries? The bathrobe? How do you negotiate among family members who are at varying ends of the spectrum in terms of “get it out of my sight immediately” and “don’t move anything”?
If your person has any kind of appointments coming up, be prepared to either cancel those or field the reminder calls. My mom seemed to think that someone would send some kind of general notice to all of a patient’s doctors that they had died but that wasn’t our experience.
You’re supposed to (in my culture) write thank you notes for all the flowers and cards, etc. Do yourself a favor and get some that are pre-printed with “the family of X thanks you for your kindness at this difficult time” or whatever. You are not going to be in any shape for personalized correspondence, no matter how much Miss Manners insists that it’s the only correct way to handle it.
Notifying people. You’ll probably need to get the word out somehow. Don’t take anyone’s reaction personally. News like this can make people react in bizarre ways, especially if they have been traumatized by something else, so maybe enlist a friend to help with calling people if you can. You will likely not be up for being on the receiving end of a misplaced rant about where the funeral is being held and how the deceased hated that city.
Everyone’s emotions are going to run high and it’s going to come out in weird ways. Someone will be screaming about hummus. Someone will boil over with rage about the funeral director’s choice of words. Try and let it go if you can.
I only have experience with a large chain of mortuaries in the U.S., but be aware that you may be presented with options for a lot of memorial items you can purchase through the funeral home, such as portraits or jewelry. Just know that if you don’t buy these things or if they don’t help you, it doesn’t mean that you don’t care about the person who has died. Conversely, if you don’t like what the funeral home is selling, you’re not stuck with those choices—there is an entire galaxy of mementos out there that will suit your tastes. I was definitely not prepared for the brochures about fingerprint pendants, etc. and it was one more sad decision to have to make.
posted by corey flood at 9:32 AM on December 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
My mom died a couple of months ago, and my dad a few years before that. What folks are saying here rings so true. The whole experience at the funeral home was bizarre - my mom had luckily chosen this stuff beforehand, but I still found myself asking why we'd ever want to spend an additional 10K for a casket that was concrete-cased, or specially-matched silk linings. And the keepsakes were very weird.
I didn't think about all the places where the obituary should run - we ran it in the paper in the town where she lived, but not in the small place in Illinois where she grew up, which apparently annoyed her brother.
I had no idea what she wanted for her funeral service, so I just went with what the priest suggested. I didn't love how it turned out, but I decided that the ceremony itself was for the people who attended, and they seemed ok with it, so I let it go.
She had a custom motorized wheelchair that has proven extremely hard to get rid of, which surprised me. (btw, anyone in WI need a motorized wheelchair, free of charge?)
Definitely get lots of death certificates, and expect lots of random accounts to show up. There were a few things that never got taken out of my dad's name, which was a pain.
And yeah, the weird random stuff. My current puzzle is a safe deposit key for a bank in another state ...
posted by chbrooks at 9:53 AM on December 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
I didn't think about all the places where the obituary should run - we ran it in the paper in the town where she lived, but not in the small place in Illinois where she grew up, which apparently annoyed her brother.
I had no idea what she wanted for her funeral service, so I just went with what the priest suggested. I didn't love how it turned out, but I decided that the ceremony itself was for the people who attended, and they seemed ok with it, so I let it go.
She had a custom motorized wheelchair that has proven extremely hard to get rid of, which surprised me. (btw, anyone in WI need a motorized wheelchair, free of charge?)
Definitely get lots of death certificates, and expect lots of random accounts to show up. There were a few things that never got taken out of my dad's name, which was a pain.
And yeah, the weird random stuff. My current puzzle is a safe deposit key for a bank in another state ...
posted by chbrooks at 9:53 AM on December 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
Oh, yes, keys. Everyone will have a ring of keys that they kept just in case they ever figured out what they went to. You will not figure it out either. And you will keep them just in case.
posted by sageleaf at 9:58 AM on December 30, 2021 [15 favorites]
posted by sageleaf at 9:58 AM on December 30, 2021 [15 favorites]
Oh yes, I forgot about the issue of notifying people. I enlisted a first cousin to notify the extended family, and a couple of other people offered to help and we took them up on it. Families are often so scattered around the country these days that it can take effort to get the word out.
I did take something my mother-in-law said to heart. Both she and my father were up enough in age that they did not use email or social media, and even though some of their friends did, they had not kept that type of contact information. We went through their paper address books and notified everyone we could get hold of (i.e. names we recognized). It was hard to make those calls, but what my mother-in-law said was that when she got into her 80s it follows that more people you know are dying, and it can really hurt to find out that your first cousin died a few months ago and none of their kids thought to let you know that. It is not always easy to figure out who people were close to, so we didn't assume and just notified everyone.
posted by gudrun at 10:19 AM on December 30, 2021 [7 favorites]
I did take something my mother-in-law said to heart. Both she and my father were up enough in age that they did not use email or social media, and even though some of their friends did, they had not kept that type of contact information. We went through their paper address books and notified everyone we could get hold of (i.e. names we recognized). It was hard to make those calls, but what my mother-in-law said was that when she got into her 80s it follows that more people you know are dying, and it can really hurt to find out that your first cousin died a few months ago and none of their kids thought to let you know that. It is not always easy to figure out who people were close to, so we didn't assume and just notified everyone.
posted by gudrun at 10:19 AM on December 30, 2021 [7 favorites]
Facebook requires a death certificate to close an account and if you can’t get into their account and change the settings at least, know that you will continue to receive cheery little reminders to “send them good thoughts!” on their birthday.There's a process to memorialize an account, which keeps it visible but notes that the person has died. I did that for my mom's account, and I am pretty sure I didn't need a death certificate. One thing to keep in mind is that you might not want close friends or family members to find out about the death from Facebook, so it's probably a good idea to contact everyone important before you memorialize the Facebook page.
After my mom died, we focused on the fact that she had thousands and thousands of family photos on her phone: she was the person who took pictures of the grandkid's birthday parties and whatnot. We had to come up with a plan to store them, and we also went through and made prints of ones that we wanted hard copies of. That was kind of cathartic, but also hard.
posted by ArbitraryAndCapricious at 10:22 AM on December 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
Getting rid of any non-rented durable medical equipment is hard, unless you have a DME bank near you. Even then, sometimes they don't have space. Getting rid of large furniture is also difficult, unless you have family/friends who want it, or have the bandwidth to try and sell it. Those kinds of large objects are difficult to donate or give away.
If the person hasn't died yet, and passes at home, and you need to call the mortuary to pick up the body, it might take longer than you think, up to several hours. You may think about whether you want to sit with the person after they've died or not, whether you want to get them "ready" in any way to go to the mortuary...it's a strange thought process that might not have occurred to you ahead of time.
posted by assenav at 10:25 AM on December 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
If the person hasn't died yet, and passes at home, and you need to call the mortuary to pick up the body, it might take longer than you think, up to several hours. You may think about whether you want to sit with the person after they've died or not, whether you want to get them "ready" in any way to go to the mortuary...it's a strange thought process that might not have occurred to you ahead of time.
posted by assenav at 10:25 AM on December 30, 2021 [10 favorites]
I was so numb and only dealt with what was pushed in front of my face that I absolutely had to deal with. Things that surprised me were:
It took a lot longer than expected to get the death certificate, my brother in law had died a few weeks earlier in the same county but his certificate took half as long.
Because I did not do anything about it, there was no obituary published anywhere.
Some social media stuff, like Linked In, wanted an obituary to retire the account, they didn't care about the death certificate they wanted an online obituary link. It took over a year to get his Linked In account memorialized. (I could log in but unsurprisingly you can't mark 'yourself' deceased in the profile settings).
A couple of places wanted our marriage certificate alongside the death certificate (probably because our last names didn't match), and one wanted his birth certificate as well.
The less 'official' the institution I was dealing with, the less they knew what to do and the more annoying the process. Every bank I dealt with had kind and competent employees do everything as soon as I told them what happened, insurance, hospitals, etc. all knew how to handle it and just needed the certificate. Local utilities companies made me do some extra steps like come in person to sign things. At the other end of the spectrum, social media platforms in 2012 were the worst at not having clear guidelines or contact options to even start the process.
We were living in a huge apartment complex and when I went to ask the staff in the office to remove his name from the lease a couple months later, they had a freak-out that he had died in our apartment and no one had told them. I think it was just death-fear, not anything official or legal, but it was another case where someone unconnected was expecting me as the widow to make them feel better about it.
I really wish he had left me something listing online forums and what he wanted shared in those communities, especially because we had months of knowing he was at high risk. He spent much of his time on various forums but I did not know what they were (other than RPG related) or what his screenname was so I had no idea who would want to know why he just disappeared.
Because he was so ill I had been putting our 'out of pocket maximum' into FSA each year. He died just days after I had committed to the amount to be withdrawn in the following year, and that was the one thing they would not let me change. So I had a huge amount that I had to spend on myself alone the next year to avoid losing it (I got some dental stuff done).
I did not think at first about everything where he was my beneficiary. I had to track down and update that information on life insurance etc.
Things I'm glad I did do, mostly because someone with experience warned me:
Asked for 10 copies of the death certificate up front. I did at one point have seven of them out of my hands at the same time, and in the end I only have six left in the file cabinet because some were never returned as promised.
He had left his computer turned on and logged in and his phone unlocked, so I went in and changed the passwords on every account that was logged in or remembered by his browser. I did end up canceling some recurring memberships/subscriptions that would have been very difficult without access to those accounts and his email.
I had friends in health care, one working at a residential facility and one home care provider. that helped me get rid of medical supplies (unused needles, wound care, IV care) as well as do safe and official destruction of leftover medication.
I had one friend step up and do personal notifications, she took his phone and went through to make sure everyone was told (via her own phone/email, it would have been terrible to do it from his phone). She also offered to be my buffer for everyone non-family who was asking questions and offering help. I could not have survived the first few weeks without that. Friends, she is now my roommate and platonic life-partner
posted by buildmyworld at 10:57 AM on December 30, 2021 [21 favorites]
It took a lot longer than expected to get the death certificate, my brother in law had died a few weeks earlier in the same county but his certificate took half as long.
Because I did not do anything about it, there was no obituary published anywhere.
Some social media stuff, like Linked In, wanted an obituary to retire the account, they didn't care about the death certificate they wanted an online obituary link. It took over a year to get his Linked In account memorialized. (I could log in but unsurprisingly you can't mark 'yourself' deceased in the profile settings).
A couple of places wanted our marriage certificate alongside the death certificate (probably because our last names didn't match), and one wanted his birth certificate as well.
The less 'official' the institution I was dealing with, the less they knew what to do and the more annoying the process. Every bank I dealt with had kind and competent employees do everything as soon as I told them what happened, insurance, hospitals, etc. all knew how to handle it and just needed the certificate. Local utilities companies made me do some extra steps like come in person to sign things. At the other end of the spectrum, social media platforms in 2012 were the worst at not having clear guidelines or contact options to even start the process.
We were living in a huge apartment complex and when I went to ask the staff in the office to remove his name from the lease a couple months later, they had a freak-out that he had died in our apartment and no one had told them. I think it was just death-fear, not anything official or legal, but it was another case where someone unconnected was expecting me as the widow to make them feel better about it.
I really wish he had left me something listing online forums and what he wanted shared in those communities, especially because we had months of knowing he was at high risk. He spent much of his time on various forums but I did not know what they were (other than RPG related) or what his screenname was so I had no idea who would want to know why he just disappeared.
Because he was so ill I had been putting our 'out of pocket maximum' into FSA each year. He died just days after I had committed to the amount to be withdrawn in the following year, and that was the one thing they would not let me change. So I had a huge amount that I had to spend on myself alone the next year to avoid losing it (I got some dental stuff done).
I did not think at first about everything where he was my beneficiary. I had to track down and update that information on life insurance etc.
Things I'm glad I did do, mostly because someone with experience warned me:
Asked for 10 copies of the death certificate up front. I did at one point have seven of them out of my hands at the same time, and in the end I only have six left in the file cabinet because some were never returned as promised.
He had left his computer turned on and logged in and his phone unlocked, so I went in and changed the passwords on every account that was logged in or remembered by his browser. I did end up canceling some recurring memberships/subscriptions that would have been very difficult without access to those accounts and his email.
I had friends in health care, one working at a residential facility and one home care provider. that helped me get rid of medical supplies (unused needles, wound care, IV care) as well as do safe and official destruction of leftover medication.
I had one friend step up and do personal notifications, she took his phone and went through to make sure everyone was told (via her own phone/email, it would have been terrible to do it from his phone). She also offered to be my buffer for everyone non-family who was asking questions and offering help. I could not have survived the first few weeks without that. Friends, she is now my roommate and platonic life-partner
posted by buildmyworld at 10:57 AM on December 30, 2021 [21 favorites]
Everyone is mentioning death certificates, and that is correct, because you need so, so many copies and it's a real pain to get extras if you don't get enough at first.
People have so much stuff. Not heirlooms or furniture (or sex stuff), but just stuff: dinnerware, cleaning supplies, take-out menus, band-aids, old receipts, spare soap and toilet paper, all the things you use or accumulate every day. All that stuff needs to be gone through and disposed of. It takes a long time, winding up a person's life; even after the funeral/burial it may take months (or maybe years) to get everything sorted.
If the deceased didn't make plans for end-of-life everything will be ten times harder and more complicated. (Everyone, please make a will.) Look up your local estate/probate laws, they're different everywhere. Consulting a lawyer to help navigate the legalities is not just for the rich; it may seriously be worth the money and make your life easier if there is an estate (and the estate should pay for it).
Don't feel like you have to do everything by yourself. Even if you're the executor, ask for help or delegate; many people will feel better if they have a concrete task to accomplish. Death brings out a lot of feelings and can make people act weirdly. Be as kind to yourself and to your family as you can.
Finally, you'll probably mess some things up or wish later that you'd done something differently. That's totally ok: people don't get a lot of chances to practice this sort of thing (hopefully), so even if you're very well-prepared, expect to feel at a loss sometimes. You'll make it through.
posted by radiogreentea at 12:15 PM on December 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
People have so much stuff. Not heirlooms or furniture (or sex stuff), but just stuff: dinnerware, cleaning supplies, take-out menus, band-aids, old receipts, spare soap and toilet paper, all the things you use or accumulate every day. All that stuff needs to be gone through and disposed of. It takes a long time, winding up a person's life; even after the funeral/burial it may take months (or maybe years) to get everything sorted.
If the deceased didn't make plans for end-of-life everything will be ten times harder and more complicated. (Everyone, please make a will.) Look up your local estate/probate laws, they're different everywhere. Consulting a lawyer to help navigate the legalities is not just for the rich; it may seriously be worth the money and make your life easier if there is an estate (and the estate should pay for it).
Don't feel like you have to do everything by yourself. Even if you're the executor, ask for help or delegate; many people will feel better if they have a concrete task to accomplish. Death brings out a lot of feelings and can make people act weirdly. Be as kind to yourself and to your family as you can.
Finally, you'll probably mess some things up or wish later that you'd done something differently. That's totally ok: people don't get a lot of chances to practice this sort of thing (hopefully), so even if you're very well-prepared, expect to feel at a loss sometimes. You'll make it through.
posted by radiogreentea at 12:15 PM on December 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
My mom was impressed by how many places in the house my grandma had cash stashed in small amounts. Tucked into books. In every purse, clutch, and handbag. Most amusingly, in the study filing cabinet, filed under 'M' (presumably for "money").
posted by potrzebie at 12:27 PM on December 30, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by potrzebie at 12:27 PM on December 30, 2021 [6 favorites]
The relatives that you thought were reasonably honest, that you find out aren't.
The ones truly grieving the deceased are the ones most likely to get screwed over if there isn't a very good, clear will.
That things like jewelry or property that they intended to go to grandchildren really should have - despite literally EVERYONE IN THE FAMILY KNOWING - should have been documented and in a will.
posted by stormyteal at 1:21 PM on December 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
The ones truly grieving the deceased are the ones most likely to get screwed over if there isn't a very good, clear will.
That things like jewelry or property that they intended to go to grandchildren really should have - despite literally EVERYONE IN THE FAMILY KNOWING - should have been documented and in a will.
posted by stormyteal at 1:21 PM on December 30, 2021 [4 favorites]
It's not the big stuff that's the hassle, it's all the little shit that adds up.
Things like finding a dry cleaning ticket in their wallet, and then needing to track down the dry cleaner and get the clothes from them, make sure they got paid for their work, etc.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 1:56 PM on December 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
Things like finding a dry cleaning ticket in their wallet, and then needing to track down the dry cleaner and get the clothes from them, make sure they got paid for their work, etc.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 1:56 PM on December 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
How long it took to return the leased car. OMG. So many hoops to jump through, and the fees adding up every time the wouldn’t pick up the blasted car.
In Los Angeles, if you die suddenly, they take your cell phone to morgue as evidence. There’s a form to fill out to get it back.
I found it very helpful to have a place on my
Phone to constant jot down notes, to do lists. There was so much time sensitive information flying at me it really proved invaluable.
posted by Pretty Good Talker at 2:02 PM on December 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
In Los Angeles, if you die suddenly, they take your cell phone to morgue as evidence. There’s a form to fill out to get it back.
I found it very helpful to have a place on my
Phone to constant jot down notes, to do lists. There was so much time sensitive information flying at me it really proved invaluable.
posted by Pretty Good Talker at 2:02 PM on December 30, 2021 [1 favorite]
Substantial variation in how different jurisdictions deal with death, and what documentation they require.
The amount of time it takes to "go through" everything is massive. You will probably revise your threshold for "have to keep" multiple times.
If you have to deal with books, be prepared for the possibility that no one will buy them or accept them as donations. I'm not talking about National Geographic and "perfectly good" encyclopedias from 1982, but almost literally anything.
If you are the executor/personal representative, get more copies of the Letters Testamentary than you think you will need. Ditto, as others have observed, death certificates.
Unless you are yourself a lawyer experienced in handling personal estates, I do not advise serving as personal representative/executor. Every person I know who has served for a family member said it was an exhausting, time-consuming, often thankless task that they wish they'd hired a lawyer to do.
I don't think anyone's mentioned it, so: guns. Have at least a rough strategy in mind for how to deal with firearms if one or more shows up. They can show up in unusual quantities (1 when you expect 0, 27 when you expect 2, etc.) and unusual places (Uncle Joe had a hideout gun in the pantry? Whoa). Check out your local laws on this, if there's any sort of time limit on givebacks, sales, transfer of ownership, etc.
posted by cupcakeninja at 2:05 PM on December 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
The amount of time it takes to "go through" everything is massive. You will probably revise your threshold for "have to keep" multiple times.
If you have to deal with books, be prepared for the possibility that no one will buy them or accept them as donations. I'm not talking about National Geographic and "perfectly good" encyclopedias from 1982, but almost literally anything.
If you are the executor/personal representative, get more copies of the Letters Testamentary than you think you will need. Ditto, as others have observed, death certificates.
Unless you are yourself a lawyer experienced in handling personal estates, I do not advise serving as personal representative/executor. Every person I know who has served for a family member said it was an exhausting, time-consuming, often thankless task that they wish they'd hired a lawyer to do.
I don't think anyone's mentioned it, so: guns. Have at least a rough strategy in mind for how to deal with firearms if one or more shows up. They can show up in unusual quantities (1 when you expect 0, 27 when you expect 2, etc.) and unusual places (Uncle Joe had a hideout gun in the pantry? Whoa). Check out your local laws on this, if there's any sort of time limit on givebacks, sales, transfer of ownership, etc.
posted by cupcakeninja at 2:05 PM on December 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
A story: My mom was caring for her neighbor, a woman with no family, who was dying of COPD. My mom is a nice Catholic girl, a churchgoer, a food bank volunteer, a rescue dog lover, the kind of person who brings you a pan of cinnamon rolls for no occasion and would in fact care for you in your final days because you live across the street from her. But! After this woman died my mom remembered the giant bottle of (Vicodin? I forget. Some narcotic) and, since she had a key, slipped in there and took about 1/3 of the bottle. Then a few days later she thought why let the rest go to waste and let herself back in, but the rest of the bottle was already gone. So I guess the moral is that if you want the drugs yourself, act fast.
posted by HotToddy at 2:17 PM on December 30, 2021 [17 favorites]
posted by HotToddy at 2:17 PM on December 30, 2021 [17 favorites]
Two things I remember as demonstrating the coldness of bureaucrats:
#1- Social Security, I called to notify them of the death and they said they would withdraw her last monthly amount from her checking since she died the evening of Sept. 30th, so she wasn't entitled to any of September. I understand it's the law, but they were very cold and abrupt about it.
#2- Non-operator State License (used by the deceased only for photo ID). You wouldn't believe what the State wanted me to do to take care of that one detail. Again, very snippy and dispassionate. I can't recall if I remembered to do that, I was of course distraught.
posted by forthright at 2:27 PM on December 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
#1- Social Security, I called to notify them of the death and they said they would withdraw her last monthly amount from her checking since she died the evening of Sept. 30th, so she wasn't entitled to any of September. I understand it's the law, but they were very cold and abrupt about it.
#2- Non-operator State License (used by the deceased only for photo ID). You wouldn't believe what the State wanted me to do to take care of that one detail. Again, very snippy and dispassionate. I can't recall if I remembered to do that, I was of course distraught.
posted by forthright at 2:27 PM on December 30, 2021 [2 favorites]
A small thing but important to those left behind; If they’re a gamer or have a significant online presence, try and find a way to let their community know, even if it’s by logging in as them. I can’t imagine how it feel to have someone you considered a friend that you were in contact or played with for years, just disappear and you never know what’s happened to them. At least reaching out on the deceased’s behalf gives their online community some closure.
posted by Jubey at 4:22 PM on December 30, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by Jubey at 4:22 PM on December 30, 2021 [7 favorites]
My mom (who is still alive, but is in memory care with dementia) was extremely organized, which was a huge help when I took on her power of attorney. But one thing that was critically important in that process, and will be when she passes, is that she made me a co-owner of her bank account. I never had any physical access (checks, debit cards, safe deposit keys) before taking over her affairs, but having that access immediately when she needed me to have was a huge blessing.
We also went through two separate downsizing processes, one when she moved into assisted living, and another when she moved into memory care. I was amazed at the amount of stuff she had during the first process; I was even more amazed at what she still had the second time around.
posted by lhauser at 5:45 PM on December 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
We also went through two separate downsizing processes, one when she moved into assisted living, and another when she moved into memory care. I was amazed at the amount of stuff she had during the first process; I was even more amazed at what she still had the second time around.
posted by lhauser at 5:45 PM on December 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
Utilities, banks, and other entities apparently have no standing policies for what to do when one of their customers dies. It's astonishing how difficult it can be to close out various accounts and/or, if necessary, get money back. The civic infrastructure of the US apparently is not designed to deal with death. It's unbelievably frustrating for the survivors to deal with.
I learned to keep notes on everything. Memorized both parents' SSNs. Could not tell you how many times I had to call banks.
Do not cancel any email or other accounts of the deceased right away. I learned that was a mistake.
If you have notice, at the very least get yourself as a joint account holder on the bank accounts and then don't tell the bank anyone has died until you have the cash you need to pay for the burial. Because otherwise you will have to wait until the county has provided death certificates, and possibly until you have paid out life insurance, to pay for the services.
posted by suelac at 10:14 PM on December 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
I learned to keep notes on everything. Memorized both parents' SSNs. Could not tell you how many times I had to call banks.
Do not cancel any email or other accounts of the deceased right away. I learned that was a mistake.
If you have notice, at the very least get yourself as a joint account holder on the bank accounts and then don't tell the bank anyone has died until you have the cash you need to pay for the burial. Because otherwise you will have to wait until the county has provided death certificates, and possibly until you have paid out life insurance, to pay for the services.
posted by suelac at 10:14 PM on December 30, 2021 [3 favorites]
My mom was impressed by how many places in the house my grandma had cash stashed in small amounts. Tucked into books. In every purse, clutch, and handbag.
This was my grandmother. When we cleaned out her apartment, we also found stashes of cash all over the place. What we were not expecting to find was the pistol. Neither my mom or her sisters had ever seen a single gun in their home growing up, so it was a real shock to find an old loaded revolver in her dresser.
.....
Utilities, banks, and other entities apparently have no standing policies for what to do when one of their customers dies.
Huh. That's the exact opposite of my experiences. When my mom died, it was very simple to get all her utilities cancelled. Entities like DirectTV made you go through a short encounter with customer retainment, but the words "she died" always seemed to put an end to any friction.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:12 AM on December 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
This was my grandmother. When we cleaned out her apartment, we also found stashes of cash all over the place. What we were not expecting to find was the pistol. Neither my mom or her sisters had ever seen a single gun in their home growing up, so it was a real shock to find an old loaded revolver in her dresser.
.....
Utilities, banks, and other entities apparently have no standing policies for what to do when one of their customers dies.
Huh. That's the exact opposite of my experiences. When my mom died, it was very simple to get all her utilities cancelled. Entities like DirectTV made you go through a short encounter with customer retainment, but the words "she died" always seemed to put an end to any friction.
posted by Thorzdad at 8:12 AM on December 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
I have nothing to add. I just wanted to say thank you for posting this. My dad just passed and the answers here are incredibly helpful.
posted by kathrynm at 8:42 AM on December 31, 2021 [13 favorites]
posted by kathrynm at 8:42 AM on December 31, 2021 [13 favorites]
>>Utilities, banks, and other entities apparently have no standing policies for what to do when one of their customers dies.
>Huh. That's the exact opposite of my experiences. When my mom died, it was very simple to get all her utilities cancelled. Entities like DirectTV made you go through a short encounter with customer retainment, but the words "she died" always seemed to put an end to any friction.
It was definitely my experience. Even just dealing with banks and federal agencies, which you would think would have consistent requirements, they were all over the place in terms of what paperwork they needed. Utilities and other places (like AAA, workplace HR, etc.) were totally random and it was frequently clear that the poor customer service person on the phone had never dealt with the death of a customer before.
Having said that, my experience was also that with only a couple of notable exceptions, everyone was extremely helpful and flexible, waiving all kinds of requirements as needed because of covid or distance. I was frequently surprised at how much could get done just on the phone, with no paperwork or proof of death needed.
There are two things I would suggest for helping with working through all of the agencies, banks, utilities, etc. One is to keep a document on your desktop with the full array of the personal information that could be needed: dates of birth and death, SSN, addresses, drivers license number, etc. Having that at my fingertips made for easy calls with institutions. The other is keeping detailed notes about each call, since (as mentioned above) each place was so quirky, and in some cases it required multiple contacts over a few months: first calling to find out basic procedures, then a more detailed call after providing paperwork, and then follow up calls to resolve issues.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:30 AM on December 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
>Huh. That's the exact opposite of my experiences. When my mom died, it was very simple to get all her utilities cancelled. Entities like DirectTV made you go through a short encounter with customer retainment, but the words "she died" always seemed to put an end to any friction.
It was definitely my experience. Even just dealing with banks and federal agencies, which you would think would have consistent requirements, they were all over the place in terms of what paperwork they needed. Utilities and other places (like AAA, workplace HR, etc.) were totally random and it was frequently clear that the poor customer service person on the phone had never dealt with the death of a customer before.
Having said that, my experience was also that with only a couple of notable exceptions, everyone was extremely helpful and flexible, waiving all kinds of requirements as needed because of covid or distance. I was frequently surprised at how much could get done just on the phone, with no paperwork or proof of death needed.
There are two things I would suggest for helping with working through all of the agencies, banks, utilities, etc. One is to keep a document on your desktop with the full array of the personal information that could be needed: dates of birth and death, SSN, addresses, drivers license number, etc. Having that at my fingertips made for easy calls with institutions. The other is keeping detailed notes about each call, since (as mentioned above) each place was so quirky, and in some cases it required multiple contacts over a few months: first calling to find out basic procedures, then a more detailed call after providing paperwork, and then follow up calls to resolve issues.
posted by Dip Flash at 9:30 AM on December 31, 2021 [1 favorite]
That their recent friends may crowd the family out. If you didn't get to see grandpa very often during his three and a half years in his Florida retirement condo and he ended up becoming the fourth in a group of three drinking buddies, those drinking buddies may end up hanging out with him at hospice for the vigil and taking all the chairs there, and have a loud and disconcerting presence at his memorial later. They may have house keys, and may have made plans with him for the disposition of his stuff, the kind of stuff not mentioned in the will. You may end up flummoxed by a statement like, "He told Sharrie she could have his kitchen table. I was gunna let her in so she can pick it up on Saturday?" regarding a 1980's formica kitchen table you had no idea anyone might want. This is a completely different thing than predatory people who are trying to loot the deceased's property. If your contact has been limited to the long weekly phone call the drinking buddies may have moved in as his community and be both grieved and trying to support his wishes.
Things will go missing if you use an estate company to pack up stuff to sent to you, no matter how clearly labeled and sorted things are and even if the only person who had access to the house was the estate company.
That dying people can drool on you and leave you needing to change before the undertaker's man comes, because when you were cradling them in the last hour they left snot and secretions on your shirt. And if you don't have a shirt to change into this can fluster you. And that the undertaker's man will totally calmly ignore things like dead person slime on your shirt because it doesn't fluster them.
That the answering machine message on the deceased's phone can be heartrending because it is the voice that will never speak again.
That you may find evidence that the deceased experienced things in a way so completely different than you understood them to be that it feels like you have entered an alternative reality. Your grandfather may have written in his private notes how your lovely, kind and gentle grandmother verbally abused him so he felt suicidal, or other such things that are impossible to bend your mind around. And that you should not destroy those things as offensive anomalies because in fifteen years you may come to realise that they hold the key to things that will explain the past to you in a third way that rearranges everything in your mind - for example that your lovely and kind grandmother adopted that personality because your grandfather was incredibly vulnerable and oversensitive and she was doing it to protect him from his inner demons and that you never know her either, that she used the kindness and gentleness as a way of maintaining distance from other people.
It is okay to divide up ashes into sixteen different ziplock baggies with a soup spoon and give them to people who knew the deceased and want to hold private memorials - and in a time of covid may be very practical. They will find their own meaningful containers. The soup spoon and the ziplock baggies are practical.
That an ineffective funeral service that totally fails to provide you with closure may provide you with catharsis instead as the tears of rage come out afterwards from having to participate in the farce.
Assume at least one person will behave in a totally unbalanced way - make a pass at one of the funeral directors - grab for the cremains although they are an ex - get lost while navigating a familiar neighbourhood, eat an entire tray of sandwiches laid out for the wake, offer the deceased's vibrators to a group of people as momentos, etc. In the industry it is a truism that every family has one person that they cannot take anywhere in public, but that person will be out and about involved in the post death stuff and at their worst.
Someone who really cares for the deceased may come to the funeral home or cemetery or wake, but never get out of their car. If you are wondering where Uncle Jake is, check the parking lot and go over and tell him you love him but don't try to coax him to come in. He can't.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:58 AM on December 31, 2021 [14 favorites]
Things will go missing if you use an estate company to pack up stuff to sent to you, no matter how clearly labeled and sorted things are and even if the only person who had access to the house was the estate company.
That dying people can drool on you and leave you needing to change before the undertaker's man comes, because when you were cradling them in the last hour they left snot and secretions on your shirt. And if you don't have a shirt to change into this can fluster you. And that the undertaker's man will totally calmly ignore things like dead person slime on your shirt because it doesn't fluster them.
That the answering machine message on the deceased's phone can be heartrending because it is the voice that will never speak again.
That you may find evidence that the deceased experienced things in a way so completely different than you understood them to be that it feels like you have entered an alternative reality. Your grandfather may have written in his private notes how your lovely, kind and gentle grandmother verbally abused him so he felt suicidal, or other such things that are impossible to bend your mind around. And that you should not destroy those things as offensive anomalies because in fifteen years you may come to realise that they hold the key to things that will explain the past to you in a third way that rearranges everything in your mind - for example that your lovely and kind grandmother adopted that personality because your grandfather was incredibly vulnerable and oversensitive and she was doing it to protect him from his inner demons and that you never know her either, that she used the kindness and gentleness as a way of maintaining distance from other people.
It is okay to divide up ashes into sixteen different ziplock baggies with a soup spoon and give them to people who knew the deceased and want to hold private memorials - and in a time of covid may be very practical. They will find their own meaningful containers. The soup spoon and the ziplock baggies are practical.
That an ineffective funeral service that totally fails to provide you with closure may provide you with catharsis instead as the tears of rage come out afterwards from having to participate in the farce.
Assume at least one person will behave in a totally unbalanced way - make a pass at one of the funeral directors - grab for the cremains although they are an ex - get lost while navigating a familiar neighbourhood, eat an entire tray of sandwiches laid out for the wake, offer the deceased's vibrators to a group of people as momentos, etc. In the industry it is a truism that every family has one person that they cannot take anywhere in public, but that person will be out and about involved in the post death stuff and at their worst.
Someone who really cares for the deceased may come to the funeral home or cemetery or wake, but never get out of their car. If you are wondering where Uncle Jake is, check the parking lot and go over and tell him you love him but don't try to coax him to come in. He can't.
posted by Jane the Brown at 11:58 AM on December 31, 2021 [14 favorites]
This is amazing. Here are a few others, from my perspective of helping my mother through her grandmother's death and serving as a chaplain.
I visited my mother when it was clear my grandmother was dying and we did a lot of talking through stuff, as well as doing things like going and buying an urn, making arrangements for her cremation, and so on. It was extremely surreal, but it helped that we had all of that done in advance.
My mother had an idea of her mother's wishes for after her death, which was very helpful.
Dying itself is weird, especially if the person has been on medical interventions, and they are removed. In the movies, they take off all of the equipment, the person looks up, sighs gracefully, and dies. In real life, the person can last for hours, even days. It is also a messy, noisy business. I remember one family member that I was sitting with becoming very agitated at how noisy her father's death rattle was.
If the person is of a generation earlier, especially a parent, they will often wait until their child has left the room to die, even just stepped out for a moment.
Grief from death is different from other types of grief. It is exhausting. It can have an odd impact on cognition. Your appetite may fluctuate, and you may be too exhausted to sleep. Be kind to yourself. It's also a volatile time for family emotions, which may run high. This is even more true if the relationship was strained or fraught.
If you have people around you who can help, please do not hesitate to give them specific tasks. I wrote my grandmother's obituary. Her home health aides helped my mother empty her apartment. My mother's cousin co-hosted the family wake when we were able to have one.
Both your grief and the project of wrapping up a family member's estate will take longer than you would have imagined. My mother was finding things to do with her mother's estate more than a year after her death. Certain things - especially smells, but also favorite holidays, times of the year, things that were special to you and that person, may bring it all flooding back.
Please DM me if I can help in any way.
posted by dancing_angel at 8:34 PM on December 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
I visited my mother when it was clear my grandmother was dying and we did a lot of talking through stuff, as well as doing things like going and buying an urn, making arrangements for her cremation, and so on. It was extremely surreal, but it helped that we had all of that done in advance.
My mother had an idea of her mother's wishes for after her death, which was very helpful.
Dying itself is weird, especially if the person has been on medical interventions, and they are removed. In the movies, they take off all of the equipment, the person looks up, sighs gracefully, and dies. In real life, the person can last for hours, even days. It is also a messy, noisy business. I remember one family member that I was sitting with becoming very agitated at how noisy her father's death rattle was.
If the person is of a generation earlier, especially a parent, they will often wait until their child has left the room to die, even just stepped out for a moment.
Grief from death is different from other types of grief. It is exhausting. It can have an odd impact on cognition. Your appetite may fluctuate, and you may be too exhausted to sleep. Be kind to yourself. It's also a volatile time for family emotions, which may run high. This is even more true if the relationship was strained or fraught.
If you have people around you who can help, please do not hesitate to give them specific tasks. I wrote my grandmother's obituary. Her home health aides helped my mother empty her apartment. My mother's cousin co-hosted the family wake when we were able to have one.
Both your grief and the project of wrapping up a family member's estate will take longer than you would have imagined. My mother was finding things to do with her mother's estate more than a year after her death. Certain things - especially smells, but also favorite holidays, times of the year, things that were special to you and that person, may bring it all flooding back.
Please DM me if I can help in any way.
posted by dancing_angel at 8:34 PM on December 31, 2021 [2 favorites]
For the actual moment itself: My ex husband was in his hospital bed, surrounded by his children (we were second marriages, so these were my stepkids), his girlfriend, his brothers, and me. He'd been lucid enough to ask me to come back a day and a half before, so I did. We knew the end was near - his breaths were taking longer and longer. I saw him take his last breath in, and waited for the next that never came. We didn't know he was gone until the nurse came in to shut the machines off.
On the emotional front, I’ll add this: death has a funny way of highlighting which survivors just cannot deal with someone else being the center of attention for any length of time. When my MIL’s brother was dying, my FIL stood at the bedside basically trying to pull focus back onto himself
EXACTLY. My narcissistic ex father in law was telling me all kinds of lies about how my ex husband had ruined their family insurance business, when it was HIM who taught my ex all the shady things they got caught doing.
The worst for me was how family could turn on you after someone dies, especially without a will, especially when they knew they wouldn't beat their cancer yet refused to plan for their own ending. Having some family members who, up until that point still considered me family, stabbed me in the back was worse than any betrayal my ex had ever done to me.
posted by annieb at 5:28 PM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
On the emotional front, I’ll add this: death has a funny way of highlighting which survivors just cannot deal with someone else being the center of attention for any length of time. When my MIL’s brother was dying, my FIL stood at the bedside basically trying to pull focus back onto himself
EXACTLY. My narcissistic ex father in law was telling me all kinds of lies about how my ex husband had ruined their family insurance business, when it was HIM who taught my ex all the shady things they got caught doing.
The worst for me was how family could turn on you after someone dies, especially without a will, especially when they knew they wouldn't beat their cancer yet refused to plan for their own ending. Having some family members who, up until that point still considered me family, stabbed me in the back was worse than any betrayal my ex had ever done to me.
posted by annieb at 5:28 PM on January 2, 2022 [1 favorite]
As it turned out, my dad had nearly 2000 lbs of lead ingots, which is too much to put in a pickup truck at the same time without spreading them out quite a bit. Oops.
posted by talldean at 6:21 PM on January 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by talldean at 6:21 PM on January 13, 2022 [1 favorite]
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posted by parmanparman at 5:28 AM on December 30, 2021 [10 favorites]