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As I’ve written here before, my mother-in-law has been dealing with Alzheimer’s, and this last year has been a constant learning curve of navigating long-term care policies, trying out in-home caregivers (pretty major fail), and finally a memory care residential facility.
Well, this past week was a new challenge. My MIL passed away suddenly on Tuesday night. We got a call from the memory care facility that she’d fainted several times, so they’d called an ambulance. We were concerned, but she’d had issues with fainting before. 20 minutes later, a hospital nurse called and said she’d arrested (she had an DNR order) and died on the way to the hospital. It was very abruptly conveyed, and the nurse barely took a breath before asking which local mortuary we’d like the body transferred to. We said we’d have to call her husband (my husband’s stepfather) and get back to them. It was a traumatic few minutes. Alzheimer’s notwithstanding, she’d otherwise been in good health and had never had heart problems. She was 84.
Anyway, the real drama involved the final arrangements. My in-laws had purchased cemetery plots in Palo Alto, CA, where other family members have been laid to rest. But they live in Southern California, some 400 miles from this cemetery. Nothing had been set up with a local mortuary. We had to really quickly find one that (a) would take the body from the hospital (b) prepare the body for a 400-mile road trip and (c) transport the body. Then we had to figure what would happen on the other end after the transport. My father-in-law also had to go to the local mortuary and fill out lots of paperwork as next-of-kin to get the body released. He’s 82 and gets easily confused and frustrated. My husband had offered to fly down to help (we also live 400 miles away), but we ended up on speakerphone talking him through the form while he was there. As you might imagine, this is all very expensive, too.
I think we’ve got it sorted for now, but holy cow. I guess he just thought having plots in a cemetery 400 miles away meant everything was all settled, but nope. Maybe we’re the last family to know that you need to make arrangements with a local funeral home, but—now we know. (And when he goes, he’ll have to be transported too, but at least now we know of a funeral home to work with.)
This was just way more complicated and stressful than it had to be, and we’ve already put “final arrangements” on our own to-do list.
Thanks for this reminder. It’s not an easy thing to do but it must be done!
I’m sorry for your loss and what you had to go through. One of the many things my mother did to make things easier for us after she died was to donate her body to the medical school that is located in the city where she lived (and that my father graduated from). The medical school paid for her cremation and returned her remains a little over a year after she died. Her one request was that we bury her ashes in a biodegradable container because she didn’t like the idea of her ashes being trapped inside a container for eternity.
I’ve recently gone through a death and burial of a loved one. Out of state or long distance arrangements are complicated and need to be thought through in advance. I would suggest a good document to lead a discussion with a loved one can be found at FiveWishes.org.
Very helpful, thanks!