[Courses] [Spineful Living, lesson 6: Grief Support]

[Rudy Zijlstra]

Mary Gardiner wrote:
> On Fri, May 11, 2007, Carla Schroder wrote:
>   
>> Take quiet charge of small chores. Shine shoes, wash the car, mow the
>> lawn, cook some meals, feed the livestock, put away food brought by
>> other people.  Just do them; no need to pester them with endless
>> questions about what to do.
>>     
>
> Also helpful is respite for anyone grieving who has dependents (children,
> elderly or disabled dependents, pets). At times the need to look after
> the dependents can be helpful to them (got to get out of bed today
> because the kids can't miss school), other times it adds to the burden.
>
> In the event of a death, if you are fairly close to the surviving kin,
> there are a lot of death related chores that you can help with too, if
> you have a head for bureaucracies. Just as people's cognitive capacities
> are shot through with grief (grief makes you more confused and hurts
> your memory and concentration span), they have to deal with a lot of
> paperwork.
>
> If you've dealt with death before or are an organised papertrail chaser,
> you can help out with: passing on news of the death; dealing with the
> undertaker/funeral director, particularly details like payments and
> times (the survivor may want to deal with the ceremony itself!);
Those are indeed urgent, except for the payments themselves, which 
usually have a several weeks delay (at least here they do)

I would indeed be very, very careful with stepping into the organisation 
of the ceremony itself. That REALLY needs a direct question from the 
kin's themselves! I personally would have gotten extremely angry at 
someone stepping into the organization of mom's or dad's burial ceremony 
without at least asking, and even then..... With Dad's burial even more, 
as he had instructed us the ceremony to be "like mom's".
>  getting
> the immense number of death certificate copies usually required (many
> institutions like banks will only take originals);
Yup, this is not urgent though. At least not in NL. They often get news 
via the official channel anyway, and will without any prompting block an 
account till kin shows up with instructions. To be able to give those 
instructions, its useful to have a declaration of inheritance (most 
financial institutions will need this, and will take no action without 
it). This declaration can only be arranged from a notary by those who 
inherit. hint: in the case you have a working access to the account(s), 
do not inform the bank with the main account(s), makes life easier to 
handle the financial work..  for a while. hint 2: do this only if all 
inheritors agree to way of working, and there is no fight amongst those 
that inherit. hint 3: if you notice that the next of kin have an 
internal fight (sigh, it happens too often. We have a "saying" here in 
the form of a question, "have they split an inheritance yet?" asked when 
somebody says that such and so family is so harmonious ). DO NOT 
INTERFERE in such a fight, unless you know exactly what you are doing.

>  calling up banks, tax
> officials, utilities and so on and figuring out how to have everything
> switched into the next of kin's name; calling up retirement funds and life
> insurance policies held in the dead person's name and figuring out how
> to release the funds in them; getting the executor of the will in touch
> with a lawyer who can help them execute it.
>   
Those are good suggestions. We were lucky in that the undertaker gave us 
an address of a professional organization that will assist in this type 
of things. Did not need it though.
> As Carla says, it's better to step in and assume the cognitive load of
> deciding to do this stuff rather than saying "is there any paperwork you
> need done? just call!" but you'll probably have to ask a few questions
> of them about it.
>
>   
>> ======What not to say:
>>
>> I know how you feel
>> Things happen for a reason
>> You need to find closure
>> At least she is no longer in pain
>> You need to move forward
>> Time heals all wounds
>> If that happened to me, I’d just die
>>     
>
> Be a little bit careful with leading questions trying to get them to
> talk too. The question I dread most after deaths of loved ones is "How
> was the funeral?" Why? Because I have no idea what the expected answer
> is. "Sad"? "OK"? "Catholic"? "Long"? (Also, as a former pallbearer:
> don't, for goodness sake, ask questions of the pallbearers about how
> heavy the coffin was. If you want to know this, get a person to lie down
> on a bit of wood and have a few people help you carry them around. 
Good suggestion. We children were the pallbearers for both our parents, 
and happy to do so. Glad nobody asked such questions... They are 
completely out of line.
Although this is highly personal, i personally found it very helping in 
coping with the grief to help close the coffin. That and pall bearing 
helps in a physical manner to say goodbye.
> Same
> for scientifically minded questions about the deathbed scene asked because
> you're curious about what it's really like to watch someone die. Just
> don't. That's for them to bring up.)
>   

Actually, any scientifically minded question is out of line. Just do not 
ask.

Rudy
> -Mary
>