Random Thoughts about Funerals

Since this is the first funeral I was “in” instead of just attending, I learned a lot of interesting tid-bits which are listed in no particular order, the main thing I learnt from this funeral is that the average funeral cost is not something every family ca afford, which is why I think communities should get together for fundraisers.

• I was not prepared for how exhausted I would be when I got home. I mean, I thought I knew it would be a tough weekend emotionally just grieving and such and we usually stay up late playing games and hanging out. But it was just more than I expected. I thought I might be ok since I was still there for 2 days after the funeral, but I was helping getting things in order and working on thank yous and helping make sure grandpa stayed busy and fed. There was no downtime.
  Takeaway: Plan for an extra day of recovery when you get home.
• I’m not much of a flower person to begin with. But in the future, if I do feel like maybe I should send flowers, I will call the funeral home first. If there are already 4 or 5 big spreads, I will not send flowers. Who needs so many things to take care of and try to keep alive in the days after a funeral? There are other more helpful things to spend my money on.
  Takeaway: Don’t send flowers if they already have enough to make a pretty service.
• If I do send a gift or flowers, I will send a return address label in my card (one they can use to address the thank you). We had a few of these when we were writing thank yous and they were awesome! Even if I don’t put an address label that they can use in, I’ll make sure to stick one of the labels on the inside of my card. We lost a few addresses by throwing away the envelope before we got to writing the thank yous. I don’t know how many hours we spent looking up addresses of the people who gave cards and money at the funeral and we didn’t have return addresses or they didn’t sign the guestbook. My aunts wanted to send a note back to everyone even if they didn’t give a gift. Some people also wrote “No thank you necessary” in the cards. I thought that was really nice too. Not that my aunts will listen. Some people also cut out the obituary and included it in their card. We also got a stack of papers from the funeral home, but it was nice to know that we would all have an original copy if we wanted it.
  Takeaway: Put my address in the card either with a label or written, they probably won’t throw that away accidentally.
• I’m pretty sure the ladies from the church were organizing the food drop off stuff. It was so appreciated. We had enough food for our huge family for every meal and they will have leftovers for quite awhile. I think that if it wasn’t being organized, we might have been very overwhelmed. Too much food early on or all at once would have made us all feel bad for anything we had to throw out.
  Takeaway: Food is very appreciated, but make sure you find out who is organizing or when the best time would be to bring it so you don’t duplicate anyone else.
• Grandpa seemed to be very overwhelmed with the amount of money and gifts that people sent. I’m sure he was just overwhelmed in general. When we were working on the cards he said to just give all the money away, they had a few organizations they were going to do memorials in Grandma’s name. Someone told him he needs to just wait a couple weeks before making any decisions like that. I can think of a few good reasons for this. First, you aren’t thinking rationally at the moment. Second, you might actually have some bills it would be nice to pay like for flowers or random fees and such. And that is why people are giving you gifts anyway. Third, other things might come up that you forgot about (think late fees if you missed a bill that weekend) or decided later on. Fourth, they are going to be getting cards for awhile yet, he might as well wait until they slow down to decide how to split it all up.
  Takeway: Don’t make any financial decisions right away.
• Unfortunately, due to the increasing risk of identity theft, someone needs to be assigned to cancel credit cards and close any accounts that were in the deceased name. And it needs to be done before the obituary comes out. We had a scare that we had some bill from three states away on grandma’s card. It turned out to be a fluke, but still. And Grandpa’s amount of spam went up too. Need to warn them about shady emails even though they have so much else to think about at this time.
  Takeaway: Have someone close accounts as soon as possible.
• We had a few people give us random things, like toilet paper and paper plates, napkins. Good idea. You have to think that the reason they gave that kind of stuff to us was that they ran out. 🙂
• This is even more random. . . in regards to a “Do not continue”, commonly referred to as a DNC and used to take you off life support if you are unresponsive for a certain amount of time. If you or your medical power of attorney sign a surgery form, the DNC is voided and doctors must do everything in their power to keep you alive. You really need to make sure you have a medical power of attorney, not just the DNC, so someone can make that call for you if your wish is not to be kept ‘alive’ in that scenario.
• I can’t imagine doing all of the stuff we had to do with only just one or two of us. I understand that people do it somehow, but I could tell that all the siblings really appreciated the time together and the ability to split up the workload and responsibilities.
  Takeaway: I think I probably need to have a few more kids. 😉