The Business of Death

Thanks for your patience these past few weeks as I’ve been dealing with the loss of my dear Uncle Patrick. We’re almost done with the busywork around it. It turns out getting someones “affairs in order” is a total pain in the ass, no surprise. Thankfully, this is my first time, but unthankfully I’m handling most of it on my own since he lived nearby and no other family members can travel to help at the moment for obvious reasons. There was his house to clean out, friends to call, passwords to find. There are accounts to close and numbers to look up and a million calls to make and decisions about who gets what and what box to look in or “Please, Janie, do NOT look in that box.” (I totally looked.) I keep wishing he’d made a handbook and done half of this for me before he left. The next best thing is knowing someone who is in the business of death, which I do!

Megan Carmichael is a longtime internet pal who works with families and individuals at the end of *gestures wildly* this. She also writes about death in her own Substack newsletter which is on hiatus but you should read and subscribe for the evergreen content. I hit her up this week to ask some broad questions about this thing we’re all going to face someday.

First, can you just tell me a bit about your work? How did you find this line of work and WHY, MEGAN? 

I started working in deathcare when I was blindsided by my mom's death three years ago and inherited enough money to quit my corporate banking job. In hindsight, it shouldn't have been a surprise at all — she'd been receiving increasingly extreme treatments for stage-4 cancer — but we're not in a society that addresses the elephant in the room. We were so focused on the "fight" that I was wholly unprepared for the inevitable outcome. She died 13 hours after hospice arrived (a surprisingly common occurrence). 

I'm a problem solver, so living through this problem motivated me to help others deal with it. I was on maternity leave when she died and promptly quit my job as soon as I went back. I studied gerontology, home funerals, advance planning, community deathcare, started writing about kids and loss, bought land for a scattering garden in Joshua Tree and got licensed to sell funeral pre-planning insurance. If I was gonna spend time working, it was gonna be for something worthwhile. 

Realizing that all my friends would eventually face the challenges I'd just taken on was incentive enough to flip my entire career. After three years, I still help families and individuals who are planning ahead, but most of my energy is focused on encouraging people to enter the professional deathcare industry through DeathcareConnect and the Dive Into Death collective. 

What are some things about dying that surprise people? Both those doing the dying and the people around them.

The most surprising part of dying is the silence. People vanish when death arrives. It's not malicious, we just live in a death-averse society, so when well-meaning people can't find the right words they say nothing. It sucks.

If you're "lucky" enough to work with hospice, it's surprising how much they can do to help support the entire family. Hospice is legally required to provide thirteen months of bereavement support after a death and the people who do that work actually want to be there for you. That's pretty surprising. I'm not religious, but hospice social workers are angels on earth. 

After someone dies, the amount of paperwork is astonishing. Some places require a certified death certificate to take any action, other places will shut accounts down as soon as you mention the death. There are SO MANY TASKS and the processes vary wildly. This is why I encourage people to offload the administrative stuff to the friends who offer to help. Like, if you wanna help someone who is settling an estate, don't bring a casserole, offer to sit on hold with the cable company. They'll never forget that gesture.

What are things about dying that everyone forgets to take care of before they go? I'm asking for myself. This experience has taught me I need to throw some sexy things and personal letters and stuff away ASAP.

Don't throw it away! Just make sure you know who will take control when you're gone. You can hire someone who will come to your house to clear out your more sensitive materials, some will even read a statement at your funeral if you wanna get really dramatic.

The most important thing you can do is complete your Advance Directive, regardless of your current health situation. Making sure that you've documented your wishes for care is the best thing you can do for the people who will be asked to make those decisions. I wrote a three-part series on Advance Directives for TalkDeath.com: 

• What Are Advanced Directives?

• Complete Your Advanced Directive in Three Steps

• Advanced Directives FAQ

When it comes to closing accounts and clearing out furniture, there isn't much you can do to make the process easier for the people you leave behind. It sucks, but what you can do is make sure you let them know you love them so they want to do these hard things for you after you've died. I realize this is kind of a nonanswer, but the truth is that you won’t be here to be in charge. We are so individualistic, but this is a time when we have to rely on the community we've built. 

If you live with someone, make sure you each have your own individual accounts with a buffer so they don't lose access to joint funds when you die. The settlement process can take a long time and it sucks to borrow money for rent when your joint money is tied up. 

I know you mostly work with folks who know they're not long for the world. Do you do any work with more sudden passings?

Truthfully, every death feels sudden but we use the phrases "expected" and "unexpected" deaths to differentiate. Two of my friends have lost parents unexpectedly in the past few months. I wanted them both to know that nothing was an emergency at that point; any urgency they felt came from outside. If they were asked to make a decision that seemed too hard to make, they could always ask for another day. You have to operate on your own timeline, especially when it's unexpected. It can be really hard to make that space when its an unexpected death.

Whether it's an expected or unexpected death, you have to prioritize those who are still living and that includes yourself. You can't fix this, you can just get through it. Cut yourself some slack, accept that it wont go perfectly and ask for help when you can.

Anything else people should know about this inevitable moment?

It's really common to feel a rush of adrenaline right after someone dies. We may expect the grief and mourning to set in immediately, but that tends to come a little later. This energy is often poured into settling the estate but because it's adrenaline fueled, it's easy to forget what you've done or what you still need to do. Keep a list of what you've done and don't be hard on yourself when you hit your grief wall. Take the time you need to care for yourself; I promise, the People magazine subscription can get cancelled next month.

If you have kids, make sure their teachers and coaches know that there was a recent death in the family. Let those adults know how your family is addressing the loss. For example, do you talk about heaven? Do you want them to be released from certain activities? If these caregivers have concerns, how should they address them with you? It's easy to focus on the dead and forget the living. I write about my experience dealing with grief and loss as a mom on my substack newsletter (which I've neglected since the beginning of the pandemic because, like I said, go easy on yourself): https://dailylifeanddeath.substack.com/ 

Be aware of your drug and alcohol consumption during and after the death of someone you love. If you find yourself reaching for a drink more than you used to, or if anyone gently nudges you to notice it, don't beat yourself up but do reach out to a professional. It's really easy to slip when you're dealing with this stuff. 

Finally, you're gonna be different after you've come face to face with a significant loss. There is no "back to normal" after you've learned something of this magnitude, but it won’t always feel like it does in those immediate days and weeks. It's okay to be a changed person; you've learned something you can't and shouldn't unlearn.