Funeral preparation notes

PLEASE NOTE - March 2026 - This page is still very much a work in progress. Please contact me if you'd like to see an update or more information added.

Accept and move on

"You've got a lot of decisions ahead of you. Just make them and keep going. Nomatter what decisions you make...they will allways be the wrong one. Just accept it now, and move on."

-"Aunt Judy" Dangler, May 24, 2025

I hope everyone who is struggling with planning a funeral can find an "Aunt Judy" of their own.

My sister and I had met with the mortician earlier in the day, and had gone to visit the cemetary where Mom was to be buried. Mom died barely 24 hours earlier, but we knew we had to hit the ground running. We were the oldest of three kids (our other sibling lived 1500 miles away), and drove to Moms home town where she and Dad had grave sites.

The meeting with the mortician was eye-opening and a bit overwhelming. Mom and Dad had done quite a bit to pre-plan for their funerals, but we were still hit with questions that we couldn't answer or we thought had been answered but weren't on their notes. While recovering from that, we drove out to the cemetary to clear our head.

It was there we remembered that Aunt Judy lived just around the corner so we texted her and found out she was home. We walked in and warned her we had a follow-up meeting with the mortician before we had to leave town, so we'd only stay about 15 minutes. Over an hour later we finally walked out the door.

Having her (and her husband, "Uncle Dave") to talk with put us at ease and her "Accept it and move on" comment came at the perfect time for us. I don't remember either of them saying it, but the conversation also had a strong "We've been through this, we'll help where we can" vibe.

Having the confidence to make (bad) decisions, and knowing that you had others outside of ourselves to call upon were two of the biggest emotional supports we could have asked for at the time.

If you're ever in a state like this, find your "Aunt Judy". And if you're ever in a position where someone comes to you in their time of need, be their "Aunt Judy" (or "Uncle Dave") for them.

Pre-planning

Get your lists ready

As much as most people do not want to do this, when the time comes you can be your own best fried and pre-prepare for everyhing you can think of. You won't get it 100%, but you'll have a lot of the heavy thinking done well in advance.

Some lists to get you started:

• Personal contacts (friends, family, past neighbors)
• Business and financial contacts (nursing home, funeral home, cemetaries, banks, insurance, etc.)
• Pallbearers

Personal contacts

If possible while they are living, confirm all contact information with friends and family you want to alert in person. Whe Mom died we had a couple of people who only found out about her death second-hand and when they showed up at the visitation or funeral I was happy for their presence, but also horrified to find out we hadn't contacted them directly.

And with the person still alive, it might give them a task to perform to help them engage with the process. If they are not fond of "plannging their own death", you can approach it as updating their holiday or birthday card lists.

Business and fiancial contacts

If possible while they are alive and clear of mind, get Power of Attorney and Power of Medical (PoA and PoM) documents setup with a lawyer and then registered with the banks, doctors, etc. Having these in hand will make all of the other tasks business or medical related much easier.

We were better off here as I had been taking care of Mom and Dads financial affairs for a few years and we had all this. Still, we were surprised when their Credit Union they had used for years but never really talked about had a small insurance policy in Moms name that they contacted us about when we were having her name removed from the accounts.

And that brings up a good task that might be easy to overlook - contact the financial institutions to alert them that the owner has died and you are handling their final affairs. In most cases you will need your PoA paperwork, and an official copy of their death certificate. Local institutions can usually take a copy when you present it in person, but any that are remote and you interact with them over the phone or postal mail will likely need to have a copy sent to them so they can review and copy it themselves, then send it back to you.

Pallbearers

Aside from the usual address lists and specific contacts one list that we wish we had though about before hand was pallbearers. As my parents aged, so did all their friends and family. Those two uncles that you remember as spry 30-something people years ago? They are now pushing 80 and need a cane to walk. You'll likely have to call on cousins and neighbors to assist. In a pinch the mortuary we went through was able to bring a couple extra employees for the open spots. When Dad died less than a year later, we were already thinking of names and we reached out to them as soon as we had the funeral date and we ended up having Dad carried by people he had known and who had a connection to him for many years. A much more satsifying situation.

Funeral Insurance

As part of their end of life planning, Mom and Dad were able to purchase an insurance policy to pay for the bulk of their funeral expenses. Of course the expenses that were budgeted for were more expensive a couple years later, but it was still a lot less of a financial impact at the time of their death.

And this gives you a time to talk with the funeral home to let them show you their options and it gives everyone a chance to meet at least once before the time comes.

Hospice

Related to funeral preparation is hospice care - think of it as the "new 911" or "Quick, call the doctor" solution. Mom went into hospice care about a month before she died. In the months leading up to that decision, she had been in the hospital about as much as she was back at her nursing home. When she was in, she was being poked and prodded by her well-meaning medical team trying to determine what organ in her body had gone a bit out of normal and how to bring it back. And during all this, Dad was stuck at the nursning home until my sister or I could drive him to see Mom. Each time Mom went in, there was a lot of stress on her, on Dad, and on us kids.

Hospice was an immense help at stress reduction. The first thing the hospice nurse did was evaluate the medications Mom was on and remove those that didn't make her more comfortable. They let her eat anything she wanted - instead of limiting her food to keep her blood sugar in check, they let her eat her favorite ice cream and followed it up with insulin if necessary. When she had a health event that usually resulted in a trip to the ER (or ED, "Emergency Department") and a week in the hospital, now the hospice nurse would check on Mom and make her comfortable in her room with Dad.

And when the hospice nurse called us early the morning before Mom died, we were confident that the end was emenent. We were able to be with her and Dad the entire day before, and she was able to pass in her sleep early the next morning. Sleeping next to dad, holding hands.

The day comes

So my sister got the call from the nursing home at 3AM, and they believed Mom had died around 2AM. The nurses got Dad dressed and sitting in a different room by the time my sister got there. Around 2:30AM she called me (she had planned to let me get some rest) and I was there shortly after 3:00AM.

Around 6AM the local mortician came and picked up Moms body to take to her home town (about 130 miles away) funeral home she'd picked out years before.

There's nothing that MUST be done in the first couple hours that others aren't taking care of. Take a breather yourself, check on other close family members who are with you and make sure they are ok.

The in-between days

//TODO//

Calls...

Funeral home...

Decisions...

Post funeral reception...

Transporting people...

The day of the funeral

Keep Aunt Judys comment front-and-center in your mind today: "No matter what decisions you make...they will allways be the wrong one." You'll need to keep repeating that to yourself.

//TODO//

Planning will start paying off...

The days and weeks after

Close financial accounts: credit cards, bank accounts, Amazon and other on-line sites, Google Pay / PayPal / etc. Even if you can't close them out, contact them so they can mark the account that the person has passed and any transactions after that are suspect.

Many of these sites will need to have a death certificate presented to them, not a copy or a scan. Since extra copies of these are not free, make sure you get your official copies back once they have the information needed.

Death Certificates

In the United States, the mortician or funeral home will contact the proper Government teams to inform them of the death. In our case, they said to expect the certificates of death to arrive seven to ten days after the funeral, and ours arrived in that time.

There's a small cost to each official copy, but you will need a few. In our case we requested four initially, but when all was done with Mom we only needed one (and that was returned to us in a few weeks). The $10 per certificate cost was included in their final bill, but it's an expense that is necessary and necessary. Having at least two of these will make much of the other tasks easier to complete.

Bank accounts

In our case, Dad was still alive so we didn't want to close out the account, merely take Moms name off the account. (To thwart anyone who might have an old check or other information about her.) Unfortunatly, in addition to a death certificate, their bank would not processes the removal of her name until 30 days after her death. Check wiht your bank, but just set a reminder on the calendar on your phone and move on.

When Dad died, we already had PoA setup and I held off closing the account for a few weeks so we could use it to pay the final bills for his nursing home, funeral expenses, etc.

Their digital life

In the modern age, many people have a presence on the Internet that is their primary source of communications, paying bills, tracking finances, etc. If you die suddenly (or have other issues making it impossible to care for yourself), your family will need to have access to this.

Modern password programs have a way to share the data with others on the same system. The one my parents used was the one I used and recommened to them many years before - thankfully we had setup password sharing for critical sites with them and my siblings. But even after we were going through Moms iPad, I came across a GMail account she'd setup years ago to share photos through so a lot can be lost.

And once their email, banking, and financial logins are secured be sure to updated their wider social media sites. The current sites such as FaceBook, LinkedIn, X/Twitter, BlueSky, Mastadon, WhatsApp, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit, etc. - the list goes on. Hopefully you're able to login to their computer(s) and review the history.

Digital secrets

Keep an open mind and remember that you're now fully empowered to dig into this personss life; it's possible you'll uncover some unknown information about them that would have been embarrassing to be uncovered by a child or close friend. This will happen, and you have to remember that it was their decision and you don't have to do anything you're not comfortable with. If that happens, ask a family member or trusted friend who might be able to distance themselves a bit help you with these so you can focus on the more critical work.

The miscelaneous stuff

Wrapping up

I have no clue how well this information will age. I hope it's useful for a few years if people stumble upon this page, but as with a lot of things it will probably "age like milk" (i.e. badly).

But hey, that's ok - I made this decision to put this page on the Internet for the world to see. That might have been the wrong decision. If it was, ok, I'll accept that and move on.

Dan Linder, April 2026