Saying Goodbye to My Mother
Dealing with the Stuff of Death
I’ve never read Jessica Mitford’s exposé of the American funeral industry, The American Way of Death (1963). Mitford tackled the subject again in 1998 with The American Way of Death Revisited.
I probably should have.
However, I have read Margareta Magnusson’s The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning: How to Free Yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter (2018).
I wish Mom had read it.
Like most Americans, I’ve had very few up-close and personal encounters with death and dying. I did go to the wakes and funerals of my in-laws. And I experienced my sister’s death in the moments after her death about a year ago. But because she died at home, the police, coroner, and social workers came and kept us from being able to say goodbye properly. This is common practice when a person dies at home unless that person is in hospice care.
I fully expected my mother’s death. Her age alone foretold it: 96. And then there were the falls, her balance precarious due to an unaddressed and increasingly disintegrating left hip.
The last fall did it. As usual, she hid the news from me. I knew nothing about it until the hospice nurse informed me. Mom told her, not me. She’d not only banged her head but also appeared to have broken, or at least bruised, her tailbone. Fearful of becoming addicted to pain meds, she stuck with Advil, two tablets every other day …
A week afterward, I found her at the kitchen table, lining up Fruit Loops as if they were her pills. You see, she refused to use a pill sorter, so sure was she that her mind clicked along as it always had. She’d always arranged them in rows after taking them out of a box originally meant for Baby Wipes. The Fruit Loops were not the first indicators of decline. Mom lost her ability to write clearly, organize her finances, and keep track of forms for tax purposes.
In American culture, Death is a taboo subject — unless it concerns someone else, of course. The messiness of terminal illness, the lack of adequate, affordable in-home care, the constant strain on families, the sweeping of thoughts about death under the rug, that’s all part of it.
Such a taboo subject.
Then there’s the reality of it. What happens when someone passes over the rainbow?
My mother never acknowledged that Death would come for her, too. My late brother and I almost literally had to drag Mom and Dad to the lawyer’s office back in 2000. Then she made some changes later as family circumstances evolved.
And so, as the only surviving member of my natal family, I am handling everything regarding Mom’s estate.
Consider this a Public Service Announcement, if you will. Especially if you are the one anointed to be in charge after the death of a parent. Or anyone else, for that matter. (Even if you’re only in your twenties, you need to have a Will drawn up.)
- Hire a lawyer. You may have to drag your relative to their office. Insist. Make sure that all paperwork is in order: Power of Attorney, Will, Living Will, Trust (more on that in a minute), Health Care Surrogate.
- Create a Trust, where all estate assets will be held. This way, you can avoid probate.
- Open a bank account in which you are a co-signer, an account apart from the Trust.
- Locate titles to cars and other property.
- Be prepared to clear out LOTS of clutter. Take your time. I found several very important papers squirreled away in grocery bags in every closet in the house.
- Lock up valuables like jewelry and cash in a safe deposit box. You’d be surprised what relatives will do when they sniff out the impending end.
- Make pre-arrangements with a funeral home, if possible.
- Ask about a memorial service or funeral. In Mom’s case, she wouldn’t discuss it.
Once Death visits, and the final passage over occurs at home, unless the person is in hospice, call 911 and report the death. Otherwise, hospice handles these details, and the family can spend more time with the deceased. The police will arrive, followed by the coroner or medical examiner, to ascertain that death came from illness and not foul play. They will call the funeral home of your choice. The funeral home then will send people to pick up the body.
In a day or two, the funeral home will call you to make an appointment to discuss arrangements with you. Direct cremation is the least expensive option. You can either purchase an urn or wooden box for the ashes. Or just pass on that. The ashes will arrive in a small cardboard box, in a bag that looks like you’ve been shopping in a high-end clothing store. Usually, it takes about two weeks for the funeral home to alert you that everything is ready. They will also mail ashes to wherever you wish them to go.
You will need several copies of the death certificate in order to manage Trust matters and close cable, telephone, utilities, and other similar accounts. Death certificates come in two sizes: long, with cause of death, and short, without cause of death. You can always order more copies if you must.
Then comes the part where a little Swedish Death Cleaning would have been nice: attacking the clutter accrued over a lifetime. A long one.
If you own a shredder, use it. If not, buy one.
I found tax returns dating to 1951 in Mom’s closet. She kept every bill she ever paid since my father’s death several years ago. Keep tax returns from the last three years. If there are any annuities, etc., be sure to contact them with a copy of the death certificate. Insurance policies may have to be rewritten. Contact a realtor. Organize an estate sale, if necessary.
If there are other beneficiaries besides you, you must contact them and inform them of the percentage of the estate they can expect once all debts of the estate and other financial obligations have been met.
Then, there are all the photographs, most of which have no names written on the back. The scrapbooks. The christening dress that belonged to my great-grandfather. The birthday cards saved from 1955. The Mother’s Day cards and the flowery poems written by long-dead relatives. The trunk full of memories.
The clothes, never worn for decades.
On and on.
And no one in the family wants anything. No one has room for forty boxes of pictures dating to the early twentieth century.
So much stuff.
There’s a lesson in all this, you know.
Pare down your stuff!! No matter how old you are.
Mom, I’m sorry you’re no longer here. But I wish we could have talked openly and honestly about death and dying.
