Grand Canal Grand Reveal - Epilogue

I'm so sorry for your loss. I actually came down here to say this myself, as both a fan of Ask a Mortician and someone who unexpectedly lost my mother. Luckily my dad and I are both extremely easygoing with each other and just tried to get through the process as best we could, but my aunt tried to barge in and make the entire death and funeral process about herself (Typical. There' s a reason I call her the evil aunt), and I had to make more of an enemy of her than she already was to ensure what little we knew of my mother's final wishes was honored. My grandmother was a painter and my mom never made a will saying where the painted objects she'd gotten from Gramma were supposed to go--she just told me, quote, "Don't let Normajean have the Catherine doll or the wisteria vase, she'll break them just like she did the rest of Mother's stuff." She was absolutely vehement about this. The definition of hell might be having to ask your roommate to drive you to your parents' place--now your dad's place--because you're sobbing too hard to drive but you know your aunt is already on a plane, and you have to beat her to the house to fulfill a promise. We made it (I've actually never seen my roommate speed before, but she did that day), my dad very carefully helped us wrap the items and get them hidden in the car in case Evil Aunt walked in while I was still visiting, but my g-d, it was hellish. I felt like a looter even though I knew I was fulfilling Mom's wishes, and found myself apologizing to Daddy multiple times because I couldn't imagine how he felt, finding his wife of twenty years dead that morning and her two most beloved possessions removed twelve hours later. If she'd just had it on paper none of it would have had to happen. (If you're wondering, both of them have pride of place on my bookshelf, along with one of Gramma's other dolls that Grampa gave me because he'd ALSO been trying to hide it from Normajean. After she was gone I asked Daddy if he wanted me to bring them back and he said to keep them if I had a good spot for them. I consider it an honor to be a custodian of my grandmother's artistry and our family heirlooms.) Julian, YOU NEED TO HAVE YOUR BASIC PLANNING DONE. You could get hit by a bus tomorrow, or you could live to be 95 and yelling at conservators on PBS. Nobody has any way of knowing the answer to that question. You NEED at minimum an advance directive (it's a document that says "if I'm in such dire medical straits I cannot communicate my own wishes, here's what they are" and includes stuff like if/when you should be taken off life support and whether you're an organ donor), a will outlining your major assets and any family heirlooms whether of the financial or sentimental value kind, and a document that explains how you want your body disposed of (cremation? Burial? What kind of burial? Do you want a more modern option like aquamation or terramation? Are there religious rites or services that need to be considered? Do you already have a plot, headstone, etc. that your executors would benefit from knowing about? Do you literally want to say "just pick the cheapest option and forget about it, I'll be dead, what do I care"?). We consider it morbid in modern American society, but life is the only occupation with a 100% mortality rate. Get your documents in order (you should have all of the above along with receipts of payment for any death-related purchases you've made and any life insurance documents; I believe my Grampa also had his passport and a copy of his marriage license in with his), make sure you've talked with your next of kin (or your intended executor, if your next of kin are minors right now). Caitlin Doughty recommends you have at least three copies of these documents that aren't the one on file with your lawyer: one for yourself, one given to your next of kin or executor, and a backup copy stowed with a close friend or someone else you can trust to step in and say "It's okay. Julian gave me these. It's your guidebook for this" if the worst should happen and your next of kin has lost or forgotten their own copy of the documents. If you land in the "I'm 95 and this conservator on PBS is driving me nuts" group, you can always amend or update these documents as needed. That's what they're for. Life is a precious gift. Death is a sad inevitability. How hard its aftermath will be for those who survive you depends in large part on you. Letting them have the blessing of saying "thank G-d he had all this stuff written down, we didn't need to worry about whether anything was the right decision" after the immediate anguish is over will be a gift you can give them, when you're not actually there for the giving anymore.

Ninalyn

I had to stop in the middle of the video to leave this comment. PLAN. YOUR. ESTATE. NOW. I lost my husband to COVID at the end of September; he was 57. He had no will…and more relevant to this conversation, he was a published game designer with no literary estate. He had exactly ONE paid project that had long since earned out its advance, and nothing he wrote is still in publication, but it’s still something we should have taken care of, and we never did. You have considerably more at stake than we did. For your sake, for the sake of your business, and for the sake of the work you have done over the past 25+ years, please. Start the process. We all think we have more time, and we never do.

I wonder if the Internet Archive could be a partner in archiving conservation records?