Need advice/Good thoughts

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My Grandfather passed suddenly today. He was 84. I just returned from the morgue. he was found by a neighbor who called paramedics, but he never recovered.

I now have to figure out what do. So far, all I now is I’ll have to look through his personal effects to find out his wishes. Unfortuantely it’s ben a litle more tha a month since we last spoke, and the subject of what to do never came up. Although I’m not the eldest, everyone looking to me to lead.

Other than contacting evryone in th immediate family, I’m kind of at a loss from there. Everyone is meeting here in a few hours.

Damn :frowning:

2

I’m sorry about your loss. I don’t have any experience with this situation, so I can’t offer advice, but my prayers and good thoughts are headed your way.

GT

3

I am sorry to hear your news. Sending supporting thoughts your way.

4

I’m really sorry for your loss.

I have zero experience with things like this, but your grandfather’s lawyer should have his will and funeral instructions on file. If you don’t know who his lawyer is, one of your siblings might. If you don’t have instructions, you can plan something really beautiful on your own. Some possibly helpful links are:

http://www.funeralplan.com/funeralplan/about/how.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_3455_funeral.html

I hope everything goes well with your family and this is as easy for you as it possibly can be.

5

I’m sorry for your loss, stuffy. Unfortunately, I do have experience with this. The funeral home will help you through the decisions you need to make, and just a word of warning, it can get very expensive. Figure out what you have as far as assets go from his estate or who is going to pitch in to pay for things if there isn’t any money available. Do you know if your grandfather left a will? If your grandfather left things without a will or if he left things in a will in a certain way, you may have to go to probate court to clear everything and you won’t have access to the full estate for a year. (That’s the law in MA, could be different in other states). You need to contact an attorney who can guide you through the process of gathering documents you will need and who will determine if the estate needs to go through probate or not.

So, find out where you stand in regards to a will.
If there is one, find out who he left as executor/executrix. That person is responsible for gathering all of the info, working with the lawyer, distributing the estate, paying the bills. If your grandfather has a lawyer, he or she will probably have a good idea of wht the assetts are and who can access what to pay for the funeral itself.
After the funeral is done, the lawyer will need the most recent statements from any bank accounts, stocks/bonds/mutual funds, IRA or other retirement account information, life insurance policies. An inventory/valuation of his property - personal, vehicles and real estate. Also any debts he has including loans and credit cards.
Contact the social security office and notify them of the death if he has been receiving benefits. Contact any credit cards and other accounts. The funeral home will give you death certificates.

I’m sure there’s more I’m leaving out, but feel free to ask or you’re welcome to send an email; address is in the profile. I’m just finishing up my father’s estate and I’m the executrix. It’s been a long year. Again, my sympathies on your loss.

6

I’m so sorry for your loss.

7

I’m expecting to have to do this alone. A rather nasty divorce between him and my Grandmother has left I assume very little in the way of assets. However he was military and earned a purple heart during WWII and wants a military funeral. Adding to the burden is that his blood side of the family is at present, not responding to overtures from my side. (Oddly enough I’m a blood relative though my sibs are not) Still at present it seems responsibilty is going to fall on me to make the final decisions. Thanks for your well wishes, they are well felt.

Other particulars. At one time my younger brother had power of attorney, for the last year or so it’s been me. I have no idea at the moment what I’m going to find after I go through his persoanal affects. He was a funny, wonderful, father figure, a womanizing bastard, a kind caring grandfather, and something of a statesmen and patriot, when he wasn’t a drunken, crass, bitter old man. To reiterate, this fucking sucks. :frowning:

8

Yes it does, Stuffy. Absolutely. I believe Power of Attorney expires upon the death of the person. My Dad had several accounts already setup with my name on them, as joint account holder, so that those automatically passed to me when he died so that I could get money for him if he needed me to when he was alive and would have money to make arrangements after his death. That made things easier for me. I hope you don’t find yourself in a position of having to worry about money on top of everything else. The one good thing I found about doing all of this stuff is that it gave me a place to focus, a set of tasks for which I had to hold it together in order to fulfill. I had to do it right for my Dad. I’m sure you’ll do right by your grandfather. If I can help along the way at all, feel free. I’m really sorry you’re going through all of this. Prayers and good wishes to you and your family for strength.

9

I’m sorry for your loss. The funeral home will be able to help with the military funeral. You should also be able to get a free headstone for his grave. The military cemetery my where my father is buried (in the Midwest) is a really lovely place. They are nice options if he didn’t have a gravesite chosen already and you have one nearby.

10

Stuffy, I am sorry to hear of your loss. My condolences.

I have just been through this with my father-in-law, who was 86. The local military cemetery provided an extremely helpful brochure that outlined our options with regard to military funeral/service/burial/cremation. It contained much that I did not know and had not thought about, including the fact that embalming is really of no use unless you are having a viewing, that buying a more expensive casket is of no use except for show, that cremated remains do not require even a casket to be interred in this particular military cemetery, and that cremated remains can be sprinkled anywhere it is not expressly prohibited (i.e., in our case, over the mountains, from a small plane–which cost $314).

There are people at funeral homes who will tell you differently. My suggestion is to contact the military cemetery that will hold the service and see if they also have a helpful brochure.

The power of attorney, if you still have it, may help you in pulling together any records you might need. We didn’t have one, and it slowed a couple of things down, although they eventually got done.

(For instance, if you are the one filling out the death certificate, it is very helpful to also have the person’s birth certificate, and if there’s not a copy around, having the power of attorney will make it easier to get one.)

The funeral service is either whatever he wanted, if he had specific wishes, or in their absence whatever will comfort his family/friends. I also think it’s a nice gesture, for the record, to send an obituary to the newspapers, even though most of them charge for it now. (Some funeral homes include a listing as part of their services.)

Yes, it all sucks. It’s also inevitable. And it’s also true that what he left you will be with you forever.