It鈥檚 one thing to give basic instructions in your will about what鈥檚 to be done with your body and religious traditions to follow.
Doing so eliminates the possibility of loved ones squabbling about the basic aspects of your send-off.
It鈥檚 quite another to carefully plan the details of a grieving process that your loved ones can follow.
My mother had the sadly common experience of battling cancer for some years before she was taken three months shy of her 77th birthday. During the year or two before she passed, she hand-wrote letters to each of those closest to her (children, grandchildren, etc.), the envelopes to be opened only after her death.
I still get a little choked up just thinking about those letters which were opened and read over 7 years ago. They were incredible gifts. Reading them gave us an even warmer hug after her passing than we shared while she was alive, and she was a hugger!
I鈥檓 a healthy 54-year-old, but that could change in an instant. I feel motivated to do the same for those I deeply care about.
But handwritten? A hard copy letter is indeed mighty precious. But how could I create something like that with a first draft? And what if I wanted to change the letters in 10 years, or 20 or 30?
I suppose I could draft and redraft electronically, then write them out. If I want to change them at some point there will simply be more than one letter in the envelopes.
That was a bit of a tangent from where I planned to go with this column, which is giving your loved ones the gift of a preplanned funeral, celebration of life, or however they would best send you off.
I nutshelled a quickly conceived of plan at the beginning of my last column, introducing the topic of giving clear direction about post-death steps that are important to you.
Much more detailed preplanning would be a similar gift to the letters.
It鈥檚 taking the thoughtful time while you鈥檙e alive to make choices and decisions that your loved ones will otherwise have to make when they are at their most vulnerable and least equipped to make them.
What a gift to write your own public death notice or obituary, providing a basic outline of your life and impact on the world and saving your spouse or child the stress of effort of that task.
Who best to choose a funeral home, and meet with a representative to sort out the services to be lined up after death, than the person whose estate will be paying for those services?
Will there be an opportunity to view your body to say last goodbyes? Will you be dressed all fancy or in your regular garb? Laying in a fancy, expensive casket or a modest one?
If you would choose a burial, where will you be buried, and in what kind of casket?
Will there be a funeral or other kind of gathering or celebration of your life for friends and family? Where will that be held? Will it be catered?
Who should be invited? You know best which people in your life would appreciate an invitation to your funeral. There might also be people you wouldn鈥檛 want at such a gathering.
Who best knows where the photo albums are, physical and electronic, and which photographs and snippets of video would be ideal for a visual presentation at a gathering celebrating your life.
Heck, you could record a brief selfie video, perhaps sharing tidbits of wisdom you鈥檝e picked up on your life journey or simply saying goodbye.
Someone is going to have to do the work of figuring all that out.
If you leave it to your loved ones, they will be thrown into the stress and uncertainty of doing it themselves, not as equipped as you are and making it happen in a constrained time frame while in acute grief.
They will be second-guessing themselves every step of the way, adding stress. And their desire to do their best by you might lead them to significantly overspend.
What a gift to do that work for your loved ones, allowing them to reach out to your chosen funeral home to trigger implementation of a plan that will allow them to simply grieve.
Next week I plan on discussing the topic of how to fund all this, an event that occurs before an executor will have access to your bank accounts. I will include information I learned from my discussion with a funeral home representative this past week about mechanisms of pre-payment.
Paul Hergott
Lawyer Paul Hergott began writing as a columnist in January 2007. Achieving Justice, based on Paul鈥檚 personal injury practice at the time, focused on injury claims and road safety. It was published weekly for 13 陆 years until July 2020, when his busy legal practice no longer left time for writing.
Paul was able to pick up writing again in January 2024, After transitioning his practice to estate administration and management.
Paul鈥檚 intention is to write primarily about end of life and estate related matters, but he is very easily distracted by other topics.
You are encouraged to contact Paul directly at paul@hlaw.ca with legal questions and issues you would like him to write about.
