Who Ya Gonna Call - After a Death? Part 1: Friends and Family

After a death, one of the first things we have to do is call and tell the people who love someone that they have died.

• What are you doing to help make that process easier for your friends and family?

In this continuation of the After Death Checklist Series - I talk about the challenges of informing people about a death. I talk to both the person making death preparations, and those responsible for all the tasks that come after a death.

Friends and family are part 1, because we will have many other groups to call/inform - but these people come first.

Thanks to Ciara Ward of ReMax Blue Coast Reality for helping make this podcast possible.

Music licensed through Soundstripe.
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I am not a lawyer or financial professional, none of this content constiutes legal or financial advise. For your specific situation consult a professional. This podcast is for entertainment and education only.

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Have a peaceful mourning.

Transcript

Vignette: Calling to let you know

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Hey. Yeah. What are you what are you doing right now? Do you have time to talk? Yeah. Um. Can you do me a favor and sit down? They died. Um, I'm so sorry. There's there's no other way to say it. Um, we don't have a date for the funeral yet. We don't know because um they're still at the coroner's office. Um yeah. So we don't we don't know anything. Um but I wanted to make sure to call and tell you um so that you didn't found out from us and not um not online whenever it gets put up. Um but I'll I'll let you know when there's a website and funeral plans. Um but I just wanted to let you know first. Or some variation of that

Introduction: Tending the After

SPEAKER_00 1:31

conversation. Welcome to tending the after. I'm Heather Mutchie, your administrative guide for the bereaved. I help families with end-of-life planning and the paperwork and to-do lists after a death. And today we are continuing our after-death checklist series. We are in uh immediately notifying close friends and family. Uh I

Why Calling Matters

SPEAKER_00 1:54

opened with a sample of half of a phone call in which you have to call someone and let them know. Um, because the people who are important to us, especially if we don't think we'll be able to see them in person before the news gets out, deserve and want to be told. And those conversations can go a lot of ways. And for the grieving family member who is doing the calling, it can be difficult and it can be rewarding. First, today I want to talk about who do you tell and how. The list is called Close Friends and Family, but what that means to everyone can differ. Think

Who's on the list?

SPEAKER_00 2:32

about the last time you found out about something through social media. Some big event, like someone was getting married, someone had a baby, and you didn't even know they were pregnant, graduated, or moved, and no one told you you were out of the loop. How did that feel? Just sit in that moment. Remember when you came across the post and realized that someone you thought you were closer to had this big life moment, and you weren't told, you found out. Now imagine that that is someone close to you that you will never get to see again, and you are finding out that they died. How would you want to be told? How would you want your best friend to be told? So that's what we're doing today is we're thinking about immediately telling people who would deeply care and deserve to know as firsthand as possible.

In person & on the phone

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Now, obviously, in-person is the best way to deliver bad news when we can. Um, but our lives being as spread out as they are, it's not always feasible to be able to tell someone in person before the news gets everywhere. Um, I grew up in a small town, so the news traveled fast. We actually had to split up who was calling who, not only because of the different life spheres and who had what phone numbers, but just you didn't want one person to find out before another person and then have their feelings hurt. Uh so the job was split, and we just made the calls as best and as soon as we could. Some things to think

Who would you call?

SPEAKER_00 4:26

about. Who would you call? Where are those phone numbers? So this can be hard to put into practice and into context for ourselves and our lives. Um because you're not going to be the one calling on behalf of yourself. You know, if you die, you don't get to call everyone who is important to you and deliver the message the way that you best think they deserve to hear it. You can pre-script something, I suppose, and have that ready. Um, I've never met someone who did that, but you you could, but you don't know the circumstances or the age or the time in which you're gonna die. So not entirely feasible. But you do know who. You probably know the people that care about this news, that care about you, and that you care about them being told in the most humane way possible. And that is firsthand, whether in person or on the phone. This

The one who calls

SPEAKER_00 5:33

is largely going to fall to a roommate, close friend, family member, spouse, children, uh, basically whoever is most proximal in your circle. And I need you to think about where they're gonna get that information. Do you have a list? Does that list have phone numbers? Does that list have an order? I'm trying to organize this as best as I can for everybody.

Death Prep Task

SPEAKER_00 5:59

So your task today is think about if you were to die tomorrow, who would need to know firsthand who do you want to be called, who do you want to have a visit in home so that they do not find out from social media or from the nosiest person you know with good intentions going out and spreading the word, um, because that is an important role in all of this, but that comes later. But finding out from the family who are those people, how do we get in contact with them? Where are you in relationship to them, like physically in the world? Because if you live in the same town, city, relative part of the state, then maybe you could do in person, um, or your your representative could talk to these people in person. Um but if you kind of live on your own and everyone who needs to know is all the way on the other side of the state, or we would even call it 45 minutes away. If it's gonna take a 45-minute drive to get that information to someone, there are probably a lot of people who need to be contacted, and that might not be most feasible. Because remember, the person doing the calling is very close to you, they are grieving, they probably don't need to be doing a bunch of extra driving right now. Now, that's for you as the person who has died, making the list of contacts and how to get in contact with them. Um that's your homework.

Assumptions are Dangerous and How to Prepare

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Now, who is supposed to be doing this calling? Do they know that that's their job? Do they know where to find this list? If you think they're gonna be my top contacts in my phone, do they know how to get into your phone? Is your phone charged? You actually don't know for sure when you die that your phone will be with you. Um, it might have been with you when you died, but who knows where it ends up in the process. Not saying it's lost or stolen, but just placed somewhere and it wasn't important to bring it with you because um someone was dying. So I would make that information easily accessible to like your top three people that you think would probably be responsible for this, have a conversation about what that's gonna look like, how to split that responsibility, and they can decide among themselves how that might work. You never know, because we don't know when these things will happen, we don't know how our friends and family will a take it and b where their life will be at that moment. Maybe they're traveling abroad and they do not have access to your list when you die. Who knows? So have some backups. And now talking

The value in being the one to make the call

SPEAKER_00 8:51

to the close friend or family member, the person that is doing the calling, spreading the news. It can be hard, and the conversations can be awkward, and you are grieving because this is the one of the first steps, so the news hasn't even fully settled in for you, and you have to go out there and already start taking on other people's grief, and that can be hard. But I also want to encourage you that although it can be hard, the people who deserve to be called usually care, they care very deeply, and if you're in a state to be able to call people, you might be closing down your emotions in order to get the tasks done, and I understand that. And, you know, you we do what we have to do, and I am so grateful to the people that I called to give the news, and I could hear them warn on my behalf, and not because not in a performative way, not because they're on the phone with me, not not for me, but to get the news and be so heartbroken. And I always remember that phone call. I will always love them for being able to express in that moment what I couldn't.

I'm grateful to you

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Because I had to keep making more phone calls. Um, and we were all, my family were we were all in the house together, so we were all holding it together for each other. Because if one person broke down, you know, you never know what cascade effect that might have. And we've got a bunch of stuff to do. Because as we can see in this to-do list, we've not even begun to crack the nut. We are still in the immediate section. Um, there's a lot that needs to be done, needs to be decided. There's just there's not really time. And so I was very grateful. And I remain very grateful to the people that I called to tell them when my dad died.

Practical Tip for Delivering Bad News

SPEAKER_00 11:22

Uh, one thing I I do recommend is when you're calling people, um you know, no one likes to be prepped for bad news, but especially if you're calling older people or people that tend to multitask, um, ask them to sit down because this is big news and we don't need anyone else getting

Avoiding the Bad Feelings

SPEAKER_00 11:41

hurt. So make sure everyone is safe. But yeah, it can be hard, but it can also be very rewarding to be the person to deliver that news. If you don't want to be the person in charge of delivering the news yourself, and you want to find a proxy or someone to do it on your behalf, I suppose you could. Um, that's one of those challenging elements where this is hard. Uh, grief is hard, death is hard, and we can make it things easier, but there is no easy way out. And so you can pay a task rabbit to go through this list and call people and give them the news. But the point of calling, the point of delivering the news firsthand is that this is a human experience, and we are sharing in this loss together, and you will still probably have to do this over and over again at the wake, if you do those, at the funeral, celebration of life, whatever service, and for the rest of your life, as people find out, you will have to take on condolences on your behalf, and you will get to take on condolences on your behalf. So, this is our first step, this is our first foray into being someone who has lost. And so it will be hard. But I invite you to do it anyways.

Sharing the Load

SPEAKER_00 13:15

And you don't have to rush through it, you don't have to get it all done in an hour. Hopefully, the person listening who is making the list for you can also include some notes about who's most likely to tell other people. Which leads me into another tip. Uh, if this person was close enough that you called them firsthand, you might feel like you can pull them in because everyone wants to be able to do something right away. And if you don't have anything set up yet, this all just happened for you. You don't know the funeral plans, you don't know the memorial website, you don't know when the obituary is gonna go out, you got nothing. That's okay. You will eventually, but our lives touch a lot of people. Um, and all the different people you talk to are not gonna come from the same sphere, so it can be really gratifying for the person that you called to pull them in. And if you feel comfortable asking them to take on also sharing the news, and that can be a great way to have the people who are close enough to have this first person uh news have something they can do, something tangible. Um you'll probably be getting a lot of casseroles and other questions. This is immediate. You have a lot of stuff to do, but let people take on what they can. That's my advice. If you want to do it all, I suppose you can. So that is it for today's short episode of

Summary

SPEAKER_00 14:43

Notifying Close Friends and Family for everyone who could be dying. So PS that's all of us. Make a list of who you would want to know firsthand, who you would be heartbroken for them if they found out this terrible news through social media, through some family relation that they don't particularly get along with. Uh so make a make an ordered list, make a way to get a hold of them and a backup in case their phone numbers change, because let's be honest, these lists don't get revitalized often. Uh, but phone numbers do change, people move, etc. So make your list, make it accessible, notify the people who are most likely to need to use this list, tell them where they can find it. And if you're going to be one of the people potentially responsible for uh following through on this list, you're doing really important work. I'm proud of you. You've done your first step in grief and grieving and death

Invitation to Peaceful Readiness Journey

SPEAKER_00 15:42

and dying. And if this seemed like a lot to do just to be able to call people, it is. And the list uh gets more involved from here. If you uh uh were surprised by how much uh pre-planning needs to go into calling people, I recommend looking at my peaceful readiness journey on the website at urjcd.com, where in eight weeks we'll go over eight different life areas, including home, health, finance, legal, social media, legacy, loosened to do all of this minutia planning that we forget about and hopefully leave a legacy of love for the people who are are doing the important work after we're

Thank you Ciara

SPEAKER_00 16:30

gone. This episode of tending the after was brought to you with support from Sierra Ward at Remax Blue Coast Realty in St. Augustine, Florida. You can check her out on Facebook.com and say thanks, Sierra.

Closing

SPEAKER_00 16:44

So for now, that's all I have. I'm Heather Mechie. I hope you have a good night and a peaceful morning.