Greetings from Fun City, USA™.
NOT.
=X>D=
Nah, actually it's not all THAT bad.
(It's no walk in the park naked covered with olive oil on the hottest day of the year, either.)
I think the thing that grinds most people down (those living in a Western, consumer-oriented culture) when their family members die is.....
THE PAPERWORK.
And dealing with various assorted governmental and semi-governmental minions.
I know my interactions with them have been minimal to this point, but I'm about to get far, far more intimate than I ever wanted to be.
Because after the cremation takes place, there will be the state-issued death certificate. With that in hand, I will need to go to the bank my parents used, show them the certificate, and have them transfer whatever funds there are there into my father's checking account.
After that (in no particular order), I will have to
- call the VA to alert them that one of their own has died (my mother was a WAVE during Nastiness Number 2);
- call the Social Security Administration and do the same thing, and see if my father is entitled to any death benefits or anything;
- contact all of the various magazines, catalogues, etc., to which my mother either subscribed or got on a regular basis and have them "turned off" (as best I can - someone wiser than I once cracked that modern humanity's true achievement of immortality was the mass mailing list; I can attest to the fact that's VERY true - years ago I worked in a stock brokerage, and one of the partners died, but we continued to get mail from him on a fairly regular basis for YEARS afterwards!);
- contact any other financial institutions and have her accounts either closed or transferred under my father's name; and
- probably elebentynine billion other little niddly, annoying things to help keep my father from being buried in unnecessary mail.
And that's just for starters.
I KNOW there's much, MUCH more fun waiting for me when I actually get down there and start weeding through everything I'll need to weed through. Wish John Deere or Dirt Devil made a weed-whacker for paperwork. Yanno?
Otherwise, status quo at the moment.
My cousin took my father to the mortuary earlier today and had him sign/authorize all the necessary paperwork, so actual cremation will now take place sometime later this week. After that happens, and after we're notified it has happened, my sister and I will get a hotel room booked and drive down there for a few days to "take care of bidness".
Joy.
Rapture.
I have a feeling I will be requiring a pair of very sturdy leather hip-waders, at the very least.
Yarg.
=:>\=