People don’t really give death much thought. After all, it’s not very often that someone you know and love passes away. Even when you do hear about someone’s death, things settle down after the initial shock.
But for those who lose a family member or someone close to them, their world changes when that dreadful news comes. Some start thinking about what life will be like now, the funeral arrangements they need to make, or just get numb from the shock, among other things.
Regardless of how you processed the information, the important thing now is to know what you should do with the death. To help, here are the things you should do when your loved one passes away.
Get Confirmation From A Medical Professional
Getting the medical death certificate first is the only way to move forward with everything, which is why it should be a priority.
First, the patient’s doctor needs to confirm the cause of death and hand you a medical death certificate. Usually, this is done at a hospital or a care facility. However, sometimes death can happen at home or someplace else. In that case, you can contact a nearby hospital to ask them how to proceed.
You can enquire with the doctor or hospital management about the process of getting a death certificate from the authorities. They will let you know where you should go, what documents you need, and how long it takes.
Call Whoever Needs To Be Informed
After you have had a few hours or the night to process it, you should call every one that needs to be informed about the death. However, you have to call more than just the family, friends, colleagues, and associates of the deceased.
If there are any policies or accounts the deceased had, you need to close them one by one. For this, you can take your time with some accounts, but others you have to handle urgently.
Since the task is long and will take time, you can ask friends or members of the family to help.
Organize The Funeral
The funeral arrangements are one of the hardest parts. You will need to find a suitable funeral home to take care of the process, talk to a church, mosque, temple, or anywhere else you would like to hold the funeral, and also deal with a lot of other things.
A good idea might be to look at the will to see if the deceased left any instructions or ideas to help you plan. For instance, this might help you decide whether to go with cremation or burial and maybe the deceased had already bought a plot or space.
Look After The Will
Other than helping you plan the funeral, the deceased’s will needs to be located on time for a large number of reasons. Normally, the deceased’s lawyer has the will but you can also look around the house for a copy.
The will normally states the name of an executor. This will be the person responsible for everything. If this isn’t you, then you should contact them to take care of all the legal and financial processes that need to be handled after death.