What should your family do with your dead body? Whether death comes from an accident or a terminal illness, the survivors are thrown into a suffocating emotional fog. When you’re so vulnerable, it’s the worst time to make decisions. The verbal snapshots I’m sharing below may be fifty years old but remain crystal clear in my memory. Please help your family avoid these pitfalls by talking to them now and pre-paying a burial or cremation plan. Your contract gives them a blueprint to fulfill your final wishes, and give you the services you requested.
My dad was alone in the hospital Saturday night, while we were stuck on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. When we arrived at midnight, my mom said, He’s gone.
I was indignant. Why would the hospital transfer a man with pneumonia?
She replied: He didn’t leave the hospital. He’s dead.
Monday was miserable and rainy, made worse by seeing a dead mouse lying on the cold cement floor of the casket showroom. The salesman’s efforts to upsell my dad’s departure in a mahogany casket fell on deaf ears. Mom chose a pine box.
Thirty years later, she gleefully said: I bought my cremation five years ago. Go tell the funeral home to change my obituary—I want everyone to know I just had another great-grandson. And–I am NOT going to be buried with your father.
What? She had her name and birthdate inscribed on his gravestone in 1971. We stumbled and asked: Well, where do you want us to put your ashes?
Her retort: I don’t care, I’ll be dead. That’s your problem.
There was a good reason why my brother-in-law didn’t come downstairs for breakfast: he was dead. My sister recalled he looked like he was having a good dream. Her son called the police, and because it was an ‘unattended death’ they contacted the medical examiner. The local crematorium demanded a cash payment and she withdrew the money from their savings account. Otherwise, she’d have had to borrow the money or get a line of credit.
During our eight years as full-time RVers, we planned to donate our bodies to medical science. However, six months after permanently relocating to a retirement community in Leesburg, Florida, we attended some local presentations about cremations, which changed our minds.
Before our sixteenth wedding anniversary, we paid for our cremations, including the travel plan, to alleviate the financial responsibility for our respective families. I’ve created two charts:
1) In Case of Emergency (ICE) – contact info about ourselves, our children, and grandchildren.
2) Disbursement of joint property: a blueprint of monthly accounts, and checking account assignments.
Coming next:
Part Two: DECISION TIME Cremation Q & A
Because we had such a good experience with our counselor, I’ve asked him to share the questions he hears most frequently.