her end was my beginning

I got the call that she was dead through a convoluted process the morning of her 69th birthday in December of 2008 while at work. I'd just been contemplating making the annual birthday call to follow up on the card I'd sent. Seems that my current work number couldn't be found and they'd connected with someone I used to supervise, so he had the onerous task of calling me to tell me my mother was dead. I immediately closed up shop at work, darted home, packed a suitcase and hightailed it the 2.5 hour drive up the road to the neighboring state to the house where I mostly grew up and my mother and brother still lived.

She wasn't sick, it seemed that her heart had just stopped sometime in the early hours of the morning. By the time I made it to the house, the body had already been declared and was on its way to the funeral home. From what I could gather, some sort of deal had been made for one of her doctors to sign off in absentia on the death certificate, which I learned later needed to be completed before my mother's remains could be interred. So you see, the business of death begins immediately.

Is it any wonder people get fleeced during this process? I am fortunate in that years of dealing with various and sundry emergency situations allows me to keep clear and focused, but I saw just how easily someone could run up extraordinary bills in a flash and then spend the rest of their own lives paying for it. The first costs that were cut here were any hospital or ambulance fees as the funeral home actually came and got the body (all of this happened before I got there and I appreciated my people's help in getting the ball rolling). It was the right funeral home (same one almost all of my dad's family used so the knew us and us, them) and I got on the phone with them straightaway to schedule a meeting to work out the funeral and burial details.

People were starting to get word and the phone and doorbell rang nonstop. I left the details of the traditional things to the aunts, uncles and cousins, but my sibling and I had to meet with the minister, scheduled for after the funeral home meeting. We showed up for that (the Team o' Family, I'll call them) and I let the staff know that mom would be cremated. They didn't look too happy about that because I think they thought someone like mom would want a pimped out casket. Well, they were wrong; mom always said she didn't want a huge to do and preferred cremation over being stared at. We're already having to talk about the will because we couldn't move any of her finances to pay for the funeral until we had a look at it. I knew that at least one or two of her bank accounts could be immediately disbursed because I'd already talked to the bank and they'd let me know which of her accounts would require a death certificate and forms to be submitted to different financial institutions before the accounts could be closed or changed and funds released.

Call the bank and find out what they will need FIRST. Make sure NOW that you're listed on the bank's documents that you're the one who gets the money or how it should be split if there's more than one of you. Everyone involved will probably have to sign some sort of paperwork and provide personal identifying information. Like it or not, money will continually pop up at the top of the "what's really important" list.