This is all such good advice. I watched my husband struggle with all of these issues after his father’s death, including the (cross-country, long distance) house clean-out and sale, estate planning, dealing with no will but three estranged heirs, etc, etc, for nearly a year. It was such a stressful, pain-in-the-ass experience, and I’m sorry you had to be tasked with all of it by yourself, in the midst of your grief. Thank you so much for sharing your friend’s expertise and resources so the rest of us can be more prepared for the inevitable.
Thank you so much for writing about this Jane, and I'm sorry for your loss. Both of my husband's parents passed in a tragic accident 2.5 years ago. Most days are ok now, but some things have been hard. The worst was that they weren't at our wedding. I loved his mother deeply and still sometimes get frustrated when other people complain about their mothers-in-law, because I never got to enjoy mine. I am a talker and feel that talking about them and their loss makes me feel better, but since their death, I have found that people even struggle to listen let alone engage with these conversations. Even if people can't find the right words to say, I wish they wouldn't seem to run from discussions about loss or change the subject.
"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."
100% this. I think the more that we can move the talk around death past platitudes and into a public acceptance of the multitude of feelings we actually have when we've lost someone, the better of we're going to be. My own uncle once said as our older relatives started dying that it felt like the foundation stones of his sense of self and history were being knocked away one by one. And yeah, death is absolutely that, but it's also, like you say, a pain in the ass. Death is boring, and tedious, and fucking expensive. I'm glad that folks like Megan are tackling this, because we all need a lot of help.
This is all such good advice. I watched my husband struggle with all of these issues after his father’s death, including the (cross-country, long distance) house clean-out and sale, estate planning, dealing with no will but three estranged heirs, etc, etc, for nearly a year. It was such a stressful, pain-in-the-ass experience, and I’m sorry you had to be tasked with all of it by yourself, in the midst of your grief. Thank you so much for sharing your friend’s expertise and resources so the rest of us can be more prepared for the inevitable.
I'm sorry for your loss. And thank you for taking the time to share this from Megan.
Thank you so much for writing about this Jane, and I'm sorry for your loss. Both of my husband's parents passed in a tragic accident 2.5 years ago. Most days are ok now, but some things have been hard. The worst was that they weren't at our wedding. I loved his mother deeply and still sometimes get frustrated when other people complain about their mothers-in-law, because I never got to enjoy mine. I am a talker and feel that talking about them and their loss makes me feel better, but since their death, I have found that people even struggle to listen let alone engage with these conversations. Even if people can't find the right words to say, I wish they wouldn't seem to run from discussions about loss or change the subject.
"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."
100% this. I think the more that we can move the talk around death past platitudes and into a public acceptance of the multitude of feelings we actually have when we've lost someone, the better of we're going to be. My own uncle once said as our older relatives started dying that it felt like the foundation stones of his sense of self and history were being knocked away one by one. And yeah, death is absolutely that, but it's also, like you say, a pain in the ass. Death is boring, and tedious, and fucking expensive. I'm glad that folks like Megan are tackling this, because we all need a lot of help.