Arrangements

[drdoug]

I've been very busy sorting out arrangements for my Dad's funeral, which will be on Tuesday. As someone commented, it's not far off the amount of work to arrange a wedding, except you have to do it on short notice in a massively compressed timescale and with much more emotional turmoil. (Depending on the wedding, of course

Comments

[bethanthepurple]

You're doing a really difficult thing at a really difficult time. I know everyone has to do it at some point, you're showing a great deal of doing-it-ness.

RBS though? Think they just defined evil. x

[vinaigrettegirl]

My heart goes out to you. Every death means the untying of knots, and stitches, the letting-go of this, of that, of the material things that symbolised or incarnated the non-material also. It's so hard. It isn't called grief work for nothing. I wish for you all the grace and strength you need, and it's good to read that you have support from actual people.

There was a petition out not long ago about pensions for police widows whose partners died on duty being cut off if the widows formed new relationships, but I didn't know this was a universal truth. It's quite wicked, in the old sense of that word.

As for RBS, their protocol sounds unreasonable to the point of being illegal, which is not what any grieving family will take on. How stupid and inhuman organisations can be! My inlaws bank with them and so your news will be disseminated far and wide.

Holding you in my thoughts.

[barakta]

A friend who's mum died leaving a lot of actual financial mess said there was a huge difference between the helpful and unhelpful. She's not a shouty person but did end up yelling at one smug phone person who seemed to be taking pleasure in being as unkind, rude and hurtful as possible

[major_clanger]

That pension wording looks awfully familiar. Is it Armed Forces Pension Scheme 1975? Because if so, the MOD has just announced that the rules are being changed after many years of campaigning. (More info here)

[drdoug]

Thanks for the lead. My one is the NHS Pension Scheme - which would explain the similarity in wording. Good news for forces widow(er)s, though.

[thekumquat]

Best wishes for all the customer service hassles.

Company pensions usually have the same rule on acquiring a new spouse - the Classic civil service pension scheme does, which meant checking that in a polyamorous situation one could still benefit from a widow pension - apparently if you can prove your new relationship did significantly precede the death of partner, it's OK. Though I never got that in writing...

[drdoug]

Happily, my pension's rules specify that a survivor's pension runs for life, without qualification about remarriage, and also have humane policies about paying them to an unmarried dependent partner. I put that down to it being a funded scheme rather than a Government-backed pay-as-you-go one.

I'd naively assumed that this was near-ubiquitous modern practice ...