Planning ahead
Writing it down
An hour, a file, and a copy you keep. It changes nothing about your own life and it removes most of what makes the worst week of somebody else's harder than it has to be.
The record, and what it is not
We sit down, go through the same questions we would ask your family, and keep the answers on file. Nothing is paid, nothing is committed, and you can change it whenever you like. It removes about eighty per cent of what makes the arrangement meeting hard, which is a family guessing.
It is not a contract, not a booking and not a deposit. Nothing in it obliges your family to use this funeral home and nothing in it obliges anybody to hold a price. It is a piece of paper that answers the questions somebody would otherwise have to guess at, at four in the morning, on the worst day they have had.
- Records what you want and, just as usefully, what you do not want
- Names who you would like to make the decisions
- Collects the certificate information while somebody still remembers it
- Can be changed, or torn up, by you at any time
It can be changed whenever you like and it can be destroyed. Ring and say so: there is nothing to unwind, no fee for changing your mind, and nobody will ask you why.
It is free, here and anywhere else. A funeral home that charges you to write down what you want is charging you for the paper.
There is no form to fill in beforehand and no right order to do it in. Some people arrive with a page of notes and some arrive with nothing and talk for an hour, and both end up with the same file. It does not have to be complete either. Half a record is a great deal better than none, and the gaps can be filled in whenever something occurs to you.
What it buys is an arrangement meeting in which a family is confirming rather than deciding. That is a different room. The questions are the same ones, but the answers are already there and nobody is trying to remember what their mother once said in a car park.
The useful part of this page
What to write down
You can do most of this at your own table this evening, with nobody's help and nothing signed. It is worth more than any conversation you could have with us.
- Burial or cremation. The decision everything else follows from, including what it costs. If you genuinely do not mind, write that down too: it is an answer, and it releases whoever would otherwise have to guess at one.
- A service, or none at all. And if a service, whether the body is present, whether there is a viewing beforehand, and whether it is open to everybody or only to the family.
- Where. A church, a temple, a mosque, a gurdwara, a chapel, a graveside, a room with the chairs pushed back. Naming the place answers half a dozen questions at once.
- Who should lead it. By name, if you have somebody. If you have nobody, say that as well, so your family knows it was a choice rather than something you never got round to.
- Music, readings, and who should speak. The things families most often disagree about, and the ones settled instantly by a line in your own handwriting.
- Who must be told. The list nobody else has: the friend from work, the cousin abroad, the man you play cards with every week. Put the telephone numbers beside the names.
- Where the papers are. The discharge papers if you served, the deed if the family owns a grave, any insurance policy, and the account details somebody will need. Not the documents themselves — where they are.
- Who you want to make the decisions. The most valuable line on the page. New York lets you appoint somebody in writing, and that appointment comes before everybody else in the order.
Then add what you do not want, which is the half people leave out and the half a family most needs. And when it is written, tell somebody it exists and where it is kept. A perfect record in a drawer nobody knows about is the same as no record at all.
The line that matters most
Naming the person who decides
The cheapest hour anyone ever spends on this is the one where they write down who decides, and tell that person where the paper is. It costs nothing and it prevents the only argument in this trade that no funeral director can settle.
New York sets an order of who may decide, beginning with anyone the person appointed in writing. It is worth knowing which of you it puts the decision with, before the meeting rather than during it.
When people at the same level disagree, we cannot break the tie and we will not take sides. It goes to a court, it takes time, and the person stays in our care meanwhile. It is rare. It is not unheard of.
It takes a sentence and it costs nothing, and it is the only thing on this page that can prevent the one argument in this trade that no funeral director is able to settle. Tell the person you have named, as well: an appointment nobody knows about is a piece of paper in a drawer during the week it was written for.
Then keep it where it will be found. A copy with the person you named, a copy wherever the family's papers live, and one on file here. A record that exists in only one place is the one nobody can produce in the week it matters.
Write it down while there is no hurry
An hour, no money, nothing signed, and a copy you take away. It can be changed or torn up whenever you like, and it is worth doing at any age.