Tag: After Death

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First ever recording of moment someone dies reveals what our last thoughts may be

Does your life really flash before your eyes when you die?

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What happens when we die?

Scientists may finally be in a position to answer that question after they recorded the brain waves of a patient as her life ended.

Crucially, they didn’t set out to capture this data – instead it ocurred by happenstance.

Researchers in the United States were running an electroencephalogram (EEG) on an 87-year-old man who suffered from epilepsy.

An EEG measures the electrical activity of your brain and, in this case, was being used to detect the onset of seizures.

However, during the treatment, the patient had a heart attack and died.

As such, the scientists were able to record 15 minutes of brain activity around his death. And what they found was extremely interesting.

Focusing on the 30 seconds either side of the moment the patient’s heart stopped beating, they detected an increase in brain waves known as gamma oscillations.

These waves are also involved in activities such as meditation, memory retrieval and dreaming.

We can’t say for sure whether dying people really do see their life flash before their eyes, but this particualar study seems to support the idea.

And the scientists say the brain is capable of co-ordinated activity for a short period even after the blood stops flowing through it.

‘Through generating oscillations involved in memory retrieval, the brain may be playing a last recall of important life events just before we die, similar to the ones reported in near-death experiences,’ said Dr. Ajmal Zemmar, lead author of the study, which was published in the journal Frontiers in Ageing Neuroscience.

‘These findings challenge our understanding of when exactly life ends and generate important subsequent questions, such as those related to the timing of organ donation.’

In the study, the researchers point out that similar changes in brainwaves have been detected in rats at the time of death.

However, this is the first time it’s been seen in a human.

Dr. Zemmar and his team say that further research needs to be done before drawing any definite conclusions.

This study arises from data relating to just a single case study. And the patient’s brain had already been injured and was showing unusual activity related to epilepsy.

It’s not clear if the same results would occur in a different person’s brain at the time of death.

‘Something we may learn from this research is: although our loved ones have their eyes closed and are ready to leave us to rest, their brains may be replaying some of the nicest moments they experienced in their lives,’ Dr. Zemmar said.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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When the Death Certificate Omits the True Cause of Death

Having accurate death records saves lives.

By Jane E. Brody

A combination of journalistic curiosity and advancing years prompts me to read obituaries regularly. I routinely check for ages and causes of death that can help inform what I write about and how I live.

Increasingly, I’ve noted in published reports that people are often said to die of “complications of” some disease, rather than the disease itself.

For example, in an obituary published on Jan. 9 in The New York Times for Dwayne Hickman, who starred in the television sitcom “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,” a spokesman attributed his death at 87 to “complications of Parkinson’s disease.” And another, published two days earlier for Lani Guinier, a legal scholar and champion of voting rights, stated that she succumbed at 71 to “complications of Alzheimer’s disease.”

What, I wondered, does that mean? How is it recorded on death certificates? And does it result in accurate mortality statistics needed for assigning priorities for medical research and allocating resources?

I looked up the complications of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Someone with Parkinson’s disease may have poor balance and die from a fall, for example, but Parkinson’s is actually the underlying cause of the death. Similarly, people with Alzheimer’s disease often have difficulty swallowing and may accidentally inhale food and develop a fatal pneumonia; such secondary infections are listed as the cause of death for as many as two-thirds of these patients.

The result can be seriously misleading information, said Dr. James Gill, the chief medical examiner for the state of Connecticut. While pneumonia may be the proximate cause of death, Alzheimer’s disease, which is why the patient developed pneumonia in the first place, is the “specific underlying cause that started the chain of events and should be listed as the cause of death,” he said.

In fact, one study from 2014 suggested that the real death rate from Alzheimer’s in 2010 may have been more about six times higher than the number of deaths reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Likewise, if someone with Covid-19 develops pneumonia and dies, their death certificate might say that pneumonia was the cause of death, but in reality it was a coronavirus infection.

I asked Dr. Gill, who heads the College of American Pathologists Forensic Pathology Committee, why this matters. “In order to prevent deaths, we want to know what’s causing them, which influences medical practice and the awarding of research grants,” he said. “If many dementia deaths are hidden, the disease is not getting enough funding.”

More dramatically, Dr. Gill added, “Having accurate death certificates saves lives. It enables us to identify new and trending diseases and take appropriate action.” If someone is living or working in a building with a poorly installed or maintained furnace, for instance, they may be exposed to toxic levels of carbon monoxide that could eventually cause fatal cardiac and respiratory failure. The cause of death might be recorded as cardiac arrest, but in fact was a result of carbon monoxide poisoning, and the presence of the faulty appliance would likely be missed and could result in further casualties.

In a research review published in the magazine Today’s Geriatric Medicine, Dr. Emily Carter, a geriatrician affiliated with the Maine Medical Center, and co-authors noted that the data submitted on death certificates can affect families with regard to life insurance, estate settlement, genetic risk factors and finding closure. They estimate that major errors, like incorrect cause or manner of death, occur in 33 to 40 percent of death certificates that are completed at academic institutions like their own in the United States.

An analysis of death certificates at their own institution found that cardiac or respiratory arrest were incorrectly entered as the immediate cause of death on 11 of the 50 documents they reviewed. As Dr. Gill said, “Everyone who dies, dies of cardiopulmonary arrest. The critical question is: Why did this happen? Let’s say someone dies of a stomach hemorrhage. What caused it? Stomach cancer, an ulcer or what?”

There are many reasons for the high rate of inaccurate or incomplete death certificates, starting with the meager attention paid to the subject in medical school and the hectic pace in many medical settings. Speed is sometimes dictated by the need to release a body to a funeral home for burial or cremation.

The C.D.C. has estimated that 20 to 30 percent of death certificates, though not necessarily inaccurate, “have issues with completeness.” The agency stated that heavy workloads, insufficient information about a death or inadequate training can result in death certificates that are incomplete or inaccurate.

Furthermore, many deaths are certified by coroners, who are elected or appointed to their positions and may have bachelor’s degrees in forensic science, but are usually not doctors. They can be subject to political or family influence and may fail, for example, to list opioid overdose as a cause of death. Even when death certificates are completed by medical examiners, who are usually doctors, they may not be trained in forensic pathology and could miss the real cause of death. A death following a fall, for example, might have been accidental, or it could have resulted from an underlying disease or even homicide.

According to a blog post from Womble Bond Dickinson, a trans-Atlantic law firm with headquarters in London, “the death certificate may be critical in a lawsuit” to help determine “the nature of the death,” factors that contributed to it, when it occurred and illnesses that may have played a role.

If the death was the result of a medical illness, the death certificate is usually completed by the physician in charge, Dr. Carter and her colleagues wrote in their review. However, they emphasized, a medical examiner should certify all other causes, including deaths related to hip fracture which could have resulted from an accident, and deaths related to a history of malicious injury that could be a homicide.

Unfortunately, despite what you may see in films and on TV, autopsies today are performed less and less often. Families often have to pay for them out of pocket. Between the high cost of autopsies and the increasingly limited resources to do them, they have become a dying breed.

Families can often benefit from knowing the real cause of a relative’s or housemate’s death. Might there be a payout from life insurance? Is there a home problem, like a slippery floor, lack of grab bars in the bathroom or a faulty furnace, that needs correction? Is there an inherited medical condition that can be mitigated to avert further casualties? Could malpractice have caused or contributed to the death?

If a death certificate contains errors that warrant correction, the sooner that’s done the better. In New York State, the funeral firm or medical certifier can usually help with a correction request that’s made within six months of the death. Beyond six months, you would have to fill out an application for a correction.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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What “Shared Death Experiences” Are

& Why We Need To Discuss Them

By William Peters, MFT

As an end-of-life therapist and researcher, I have long known that American culture has an uneasy relationship with death. We have been taught to “fear” death and dying. Fitness regimens, diets, and cosmetic procedures tout themselves as being able to “turn back the clock.” Medicine is even more uncomfortable with life’s end: Beating death is often presented as the ultimate goal. Aggressive measures to prolong life are viewed as a testament to our love for another person.

This relentless effort to fend off death is confounding when one considers that opinion polls consistently find that the majority of Americans believe in a benevolent afterlife. It would appear that the public interest in the mysteries that surround life’s end is far more extensive than our institutions would suggest.

Why we don’t feel comfortable discussing shared death experiences.

Much of my work centers on the transition from life to death, specifically “shared death experiences” where the living report a connection with the deceased around the time of their death. I’ve overwhelmingly found that this connection involves a clear sense that their loved one has moved on to a better place. In more than 50% of the cases that I have studied, experiencers even report accompanying their friend or loved one part way on their journey out of earthly life.

Knowledge of this transition space is an open secret in palliative and hospice care. We know that many terminally ill patients also report being aware of or seeing deceased family members, friends, and even pets, in the room with them, coming to help usher them out of this world. Some shared death experiencers also see or sense these figures as well.

Yet, again and again, shared death experiencers tell me that they feel uneasy discussing this subject with their health care and spiritual care providers. Their concern is valid, as one study found that 80% of patients who had sensed the presence of a deceased and shared it with their therapist felt dissatisfied with their counselors’ responses. They either did not feel understood, or they felt dismissed.

It wasn’t always this way.

One of the earliest written works on end-of-life care is the medieval text Ars Moriendi or “Art of Dying,” which was utilized in Catholic monasteries in Europe. Not only does it contain information on prayers, music, and pain remedies, as well as guidance on managing mental and emotional distress among the dying, but it is surprisingly ecumenical, drawing guidance from Catholic, Celtic, Jewish, and even Islamic traditions. Its underlying message is that dying is a spiritual experience and that it is possible to die well and be comforted. However, in our own era, there has been a strong reluctance to discuss what makes a good death or to openly explore what happens to us when we die.

In our own era, there has been a strong reluctance to discuss what makes a good death.

Speaking of her own shared death experience, Stephanie, a woman in Washington, D.C., whose husband died of aggressive cancer, recalled traveling with him into an incredibly bright, white light. She said, “There was no pain, no hurt. It was peaceful,” adding, “It felt as if I were going back to something I already knew.” But her own clergy shut down any conversation, and “that deflated me terribly,” she said. Finally, an oncologist told her that he’d had a similar experience. He told her this, however, after closing the office door and stating he would never share his experience with anyone else.

I believe that these hushed discussions could be the very things we need to help both the dying and the bereaved. Listening to and examining stories of individuals who have had shared death experiences can offer us another framework in which to process and accept death.

Consider the story of Carl, a California man whose father died of heart failure in Massachusetts. He experienced an overpowering sensation of being next to his father, saying “I could feel it in my bones and my cells that my dad was there with me.” While the experience did not end his grief, it changed his perspective. “I miss my dad,” he told me, adding, “and I wish I could call him up and be with him and spend time with him. I grieved and was sad, but it doesn’t feel like a tragedy. It feels like he is in the place he needs to be.”

Indeed, of the nearly 1,000 cases I have studied, 87% of the people interviewed report that their experience has convinced them that there is a benevolent afterlife. Nearly 70% said their shared death experience has positively affected their grief, and more than 50% said that it has removed their own fears around death and dying.

The takeaway.

In the last two years, the pandemic has resulted in a wave of death among people we know and love. Perhaps now, together, we can start a new conversation—one that is willing to include the voices of shared death experiencers. With their heartwarming stories, we may be able to transform our relationship with death from one of resistance and fear to that of acceptance, ease, and wonder of this great mystery that we will all one day embark on.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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The pandemic changed death rituals and left grieving families without a sense of closure

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The unexpected death of a friend and colleague to COVID-19 in January 2021 led me to start researching how American death rituals were transforming during the pandemic. My friend was Hindu, and while watching his funeral on Zoom, I witnessed the significant transformations that had to be made to the traditional rituals to accommodate COVID-19 safety guidelines.

In the spring and summer of 2021, I conducted over 70 hours of oral history interviews with people involved in the medical and funerary professions, as well as grieving families and those who worked closely with them, including grief counselors, hospice workers and even spirit mediums.

As a historian of religion interested in how different cultures make sense of death, I noticed what appeared to be a momentous cultural shift happening in America in terms of death rituals as over 850,000 Americans died from COVID-19. During this period, funerary customs dramatically shifted and, in many cases, failed to bring any comfort to grieving friends and families.

What changed in funerary rituals

In my conversations, funerary professionals described the initial chaos as funeral size had to be dramatically curtailed, sometimes with only one to two hours’ notice. Eventually, many began to innovate with new technologies that allowed them to hold virtual funerals.

Richard Davis of the Cook-Walden Funeral Home in Pflugerville, Texas, described how early in the pandemic he utilized radio technology for grieving families who could be in their cars in the parking lot, tune the radio to a specific station and listen to the person giving the eulogy inside the funeral home.

Some funerary directors partnered with wedding videographers whose business was suddenly upended because most weddings were canceled or delayed. These videographers found that the high-quality equipment used to produce wedding videos could as easily be put to use broadcasting a Zoom funeral.

I also spoke with three spirit mediums who all described a marked increase in clients seeking postlife words from loved ones who died on ventilators. They described how anguished families sought to know that their loved one had not died alone and did not blame them for their death. One medium in particular also noted that the pandemic saw an increase in family members seeking to connect with those who had died of drug overdoses brought on by the stress of the pandemic.

The end-of-life work of religious leaders was transformed as well: Catholic and Episcopal last rites were performed via FaceTime, sometimes with consecrated oil being carefully administered by a Q-tip.

The Jewish tradition of sitting with a body before burial – usually performed by volunteers in shifts at the funeral home – became an at-home experience. Although the volunteers, called shomer or shomeret in Hebrew, could not sit next to the body as usual, they worked on the honor system to ensure that someone was always praying and keeping the deceased in their thoughts, even while far away.

Muslim leaders described working with local health agencies to obtain Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and specialized training for those performing the full-body washing of a corpse known as ghusl in Arabic.

Virtual commemorations

These adaptations reflect a long history of transformations for the American funeral.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, most Americans generally prepared the body themselves and hosted the funeral at home. However, by the 19th century, more Americans were dying in hospitals as a result of the availability of medical care and because the corpse was believed to be carrying disease. This spurred the development of the funeral home. Individual funeral homes often personalize their offerings to the needs of local cultural or religious communities.

Funeral homes became most popular after embalming – a form of preservation performed by mortuary specialists – became the norm after the Civil War. The war spurred a crisis to preserve soldiers’ bodies while they made the long trip home, and embalmers would sometimes follow the military troops to accept payment in advance for the procedure.

Today, the funeral industry has grown to a whopping US$20 billion, and embalming remains the predominant treatment for the body after death.

With the rise of the internet, funerals are once more undergoing rapid transformations. Scholar of death and dying Candi Cann has shown how the internet gives rise to new forms of social remembrance after death. These can include mourners going to Facebook or Instagram pages on the anniversary of the death and leaving a message about how much they miss the deceased. Online marketplaces allow for the purchase of individualized mourning paraphernalia like T-shirts or bumper stickers, and public memorials at the site of death.

Photographs of people stacked one behind another in a park.
People tried to memorialize their loved one in different ways. Images of COVID-19 victims from Detroit are displayed in a drive-by memorial at Belle Isle State Park. Aaron J. Thornton/Getty Images

Such tools thrived during the pandemic. During my research, several individuals who lost loved ones explained creating memorial items, including stickers and face masks commemorating a lost loved one, as a way to encourage others to wear masks. Virtual online communities of COVID-19 mourners adopted the yellow heart as a public expression of loss of a loved one to the pandemic in the U.S. and Europe.

Unprocessed grief

Funerals and other rituals surrounding death are important to begin the grieving process. Research has found that performing rituals has a major role in alleviating grief through increasing feelings of control and transitioning mourners to accepting their loss. Funerals can provide important structures for families to say goodbye that have been correlated with better grief outcomes.

J.Z. Smith, one of the most influential theorists of religion in recent years, said that “ritual relies for its power on the fact that it is concerned with quite ordinary activities placed within an extraordinary setting.” In other words, ritual takes elements from the ordinary world – words, gestures, symbols, etc. – and imbues them with extraordinary meaning.

We might cry or wear black clothing every day for any number of reasons, but in funeral rituals these activities have special significance and bring a sense of closure. It is this repurposing of ordinary things that makes rituals so effective.

Psychological studies too have shown that the greater the difference between what happens in the ritual and “normal” life, the more effective it is for individuals.

But in my conversations with those who lost loved ones to COVID-19, it became apparent that for many, the transformations in funerals and rituals of mourning failed to help them in dealing with their grief. As one individual explained to me, “I knew my grandmother would pass away sometime, but I always imagined I would be there; I never imagined I would be watching it virtually on Facebook. It felt like a parody of a funeral.”

Another interviewee explained how the isolation necessary in the pandemic era fundamentally undermined the comfort these rituals could provide: “Because my family has been so terrified of COVID, we have not been able to gather together to process my mother’s death. That has been really hard for me culturally – especially in Indigenous families, you grieve together.”

Reverend Richard R. Andre, C.S.P. of St. Austin Catholic Parish in Austin, Texas, echoed these thoughts as he described assisting those losing loved ones in his own spiritual community: “The funeral helps you to start a process of closure. But without the funerals they envisioned, people are just getting stuck and are unable to grieve.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced us to consider how rituals can lose their extraordinary power when our sense of “normal” is shattered and remains shattered for years. As religion theorist J.Z. Smith noted, rituals work by framing the ordinary as extraordinary. But if nothing feels normal, then nothing can feel extraordinary either.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Have you considered what happens to your online life when you die?

One way to feel better about the future is making sure the right online data is passed down to friends, family, and partners.

By Roger Fingas

Most of the time people prefer to dodge the topic of death, for the obvious reason that it spawns a lot of uncomfortable thoughts. Yet the realistic and responsible thing to do is acknowledge it and prepare, since death is unavoidable and has huge ramifications for friends and family. This extends to your online life — so what sort of steps should you be taking to soften the digital transition for people left behind?

Step 1: Take advantage of posthumous account settings

Major tech platforms like Apple, Facebook, and Google offer tools to control how your data is handled when you die. Facebook for example lets you appoint a “legacy contact,” someone who can download your data, “memorialize” your account, and/or have your data deleted outright. If you don’t want anyone getting your Facebook content after you go, you can specify that ahead of time. Google offers some of the best tools via its Inactive Account Manager, which shares data selectively and/or deletes your account automatically after a set period. You can read more details in the feature linked below.

Whether or not a company offers dedicated tools, the bereaved can usually request that your online accounts be deactivated. This requires evidence of your death, of course, typically a death certificate. Things can get much tougher if someone wants data access — Apple requires that legacy contacts have both documentation and a special access key, and if they haven’t been appointed as a contact, they’ll have to get a court order if they’re in the US.

The key point here is that if a service is critical to your online life, you should be exploring the options it offers now instead of waiting until you’re knocking on death’s door. It’s one of the easiest things you can do to reduce the burden on loved ones.

Step 2: Share your logins

Under normal circumstances, sharing app and website logins is the last thing you’re supposed to do. But it only takes a moment to realize that if you haven’t written those logins down, you may be denying partners or family critical information — even money, if it’s trapped somewhere like a bank or a PayPal account. Logins are regularly excluded from the data companies are willing (or able) to share with the bereaved.

That makes it vital to build a logbook with usernames and passwords for every online service a loved one might need to access. Major items to check off include:

  • Bank accounts
  • Insurance accounts
  • Phone/TV/internet
  • Government services
  • Online payment services (PayPal, Venmo, etc.)
  • Chat/messaging apps and social media
  • Smart home platforms
  • Cloud storage
  • Photo libraries
  • Music, reading, and video subscriptions
  • Online stores

You might be tempted to use a password manager as a shortcut, but it’s risky.

Your logbook can be something as simple as a text or Excel file, as long as it’s easily accessible. Even better is one on paper, since that can’t be deleted, corrupted, or hacked. Either way, you need to keep your log both updated and protected, for instance by storing a paper logbook in a fireproof container.

If you’re sufficiently thorough, a bonus of this approach is that you might not even need the tools in Step 1. If a trusted person can log into your accounts directly, they can download all of your data and shut things off at will.

You might be tempted to use a password manager as a shortcut. This is risky, however — not only do all of the right people need logins and technical literacy, but they could also eventually be shut out if the app is subscription-based and you’re no longer around to pay. It’s not the worst solution, just one to approach with caution.

Step 3: Make plans with your loved ones

Both the first and second steps can be pointless if you don’t actually talk to your loved ones about them. They need to know what being a legacy contact entails, for example, and the legal hoops they’ll have to go through to retrieve your data or shut down an account. If you have a logbook, it’s important that people know how to find it.

Although the conversation can be tough, your loved ones should know the steps you took and how you’d like your online life to be managed.

This can be one of the toughest parts of preparing for your digital afterlife. No matter how technically savvy they are, a partner isn’t going to enjoy talking about your death, and the conversation gets even more harrowing with young children or elderly parents.

At some point, you’ll probably need to sit down with a legal advisor and add online data to your will. While we can’t make any guarantees, it may make things smoother if you’ve legally authorized access or deletion ahead of time.

Think of it this way — if you can overcome all of these issues, you’ll probably feel a little calmer about the future as a reward.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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A Guide To Your Financial & Legal Responsibilities After Loss

Loss of a loved one is a difficult time to navigate. Learn how to obtain a death certificate, when to begin reporting the death and more.

Key takeaways:

  • Grief is a natural part of losing a loved one. Having an after-death checklist can take a tremendous burden off your shoulders when it comes time to execute final wishes.
  • Besides making funeral arrangements, you will have to determine if there was a will, report the death to various entities and close financial accounts.
  • You will need certified copies of death certificates to claim the deceased person’s assets, including life insurance policies and brokerage accounts.

Everyone experiences loss at one point or another in life. It’s natural. However, many people underestimate the amount of paperwork involved to settle their loved one’s affairs. From making funeral arrangements to obtaining death certificates, the process can be stressful if you don’t know where to start.

Having a plan in place can help you better navigate this difficult time. You should also reach out to family members and consider obtaining the help of lawyers and certified public accountants (CPAs) to ensure you don’t have to handle everything on your own.

We’ve put together a checklist to help you prioritize your tasks and delegate where needed.

After-Death Checklist: A Guide To Managing Your Loved Ones Death

It can be overwhelming trying to figure out what to do when a loved one dies. Having an after-death checklist can lessen the burden.

Here are some key steps to consider when a loved one dies:

  • Acquire a pronouncement of death
  • Alert friends and family
  • Implement burial plans (based on will or last wishes)
  • Report death to Social Security and other government agencies
  • Obtain certified copies of death certificate
  • Identify all assets and liabilities
  • File insurance claims
  • Determine if there was a will
  • Close bank and brokerage accounts
  • Send copies of death certificate to major credit agencies
  • Terminate memberships and subscriptions that are not in use
  • Terminate health insurance policies
  • Settle a loved one’s outstanding financial debts
  • Notify election office of death

Remember that timing may vary depending on your circumstances. If this was an unexpected death, it may take longer to access all the required information to begin the final arrangements. This is another reason why planning early is important.

Immediately Following The Death Of A Loved One

The first task on your list will be to obtain a legal pronouncement of death. If your loved one died in a hospital, a staff member will provide you with a pronouncement of death form.

The process is different for deaths that occur in the home. You will need to call a medical professional to pronounce them deceased.

Next, you want to alert friends and family of the death. Send out text messages or share on social media to spread the word. Remember to take a careful approach during this step. Use your judgment to determine the best way of informing those who need to know.

What To Do Within The First Week Of Losing A Loved One

The first week can be a whirlwind of emotions and roadblocks without a proper plan in place. Here are some steps you can take to better manage your priorities.

Make funeral arrangements
Your loved one may have recommended what they wish for their last requests. This may include burial and estate planning. Contact their funeral home, make the burial arrangements and determine if there was a prepaid burial plan in place.

If your loved one did not share their last wishes, it might be best to reach out to close family or friends for assistance. Research funeral prices and outline the expected costs. Then, determine how you will pay for the funeral. The Department of Veterans Affairs offers burial benefits for qualified individuals.

Report death to Social Security and other government agencies
The funeral home usually reports a person’s death. If you need to report it yourself, you’ll need to call the Social Security office at 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778).

Obtain certified copies of death certificate
You can contact the Vital Records office of the state where your loved one died to obtain copies of the death certificate. You’ll need the certified death certificate to file insurance claims and access bank accounts. You can request at least 5-10 copies of the death certificate. It all depends on the number of assets that your loved one held.

Identify all assets and liabilities
You typically need certified copies of the death certificate to claim assets that may be in your loved one’s name. Here are a few types of assets that you may need to inquire about:

  • Deeds and titles
  • Insurance policies
  • Safety deposit boxes
  • Brokerage accounts
  • Employer benefits
  • Retirement assets

You probably won’t be responsible for any outstanding debt that your loved one left behind. If you co-signed on any type of asset or debt that has gone unpaid, you may be responsible. Many in the family mistake debt as “inherited” when this is not always the case. Money from the estate is used to pay the debt. State laws on inheriting debt may vary, but liabilities commonly go unpaid if there isn’t enough from the estate to pay the debt.

File insurance claims
Reach out to your loved one’s life insurance provider to submit a claim. Here’s the standard process:

  • Contact the insurance company and inform them about the death.
  • The insurance provider will send a packet of forms and instructions to follow.
  • Submit the death certificate and completed forms.
  • The insurer usually pays claims within 30 to 60 days of receiving all requested information.

Determine if there was a will
A will can help you determine how assets should be allocated. It can also help you manage any other requests that your loved one may have had. This includes identifying the executor of your loved one’s estate. The executor is the person appointed to carry out the instructions of the will.

Here are some items to consider:

  • An executor files the will with the probate court. You can consult with an estate attorney for guidance. An executor typically has a limited number of dates to submit this. Check with your probate court for more information.
  • Wills become public record once they have been processed through the County Clerk’s office.
  • The executor must notify the appropriate authorities about the death.

If your loved one died without a will, your state law will determine how assets are managed.

Within The First Month Of Losing A Loved One

There are steps of action that should be taken within the first month following the loss of a loved one. These can vary, depending on how much was prepared initially and where the loved one passed. However, this is a great baseline to follow if you’re unsure.

Close bank and brokerage accounts.
Identify all financial accounts in your loved one’s name. Notify the institutions about the death and provide a certified copy of the death certificate. They will release the funds to the beneficiaries on the account.

Send copies of the death certificate to major credit agencies.
The three major credit-reporting agencies in the U.S. are Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. Report your loved one’s death to the credit agencies to prevent any fraudulent activity. You can find their contact information by visiting the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer information.

Terminate memberships and subscriptions that are not in use.
Check mail, email and bank statements to identify gym memberships or digital subscriptions that need to be canceled. Have account or member ID numbers handy to expedite the process.

Terminate health insurance policies.
If you haven’t already, now is the time to file a claim with your health insurance to ensure the policy has been closed upon the death of a loved one. Contacting the insurance agency should be the best way to get in contact with the claims department and start this process.

Settling a loved one’s outstanding financial debts.
Repaying debts falls on the deceased person’s estate. This is not the responsibility of a particular family member. However, the executor or power of attorney is responsible for paying these debts using money from the estate. This is done by selling assets or using any other funds provided by the estate.

Notify the election office of death.
Notifying the election office of a death does not fall on you directly, as a family member of the deceased. Once you’ve filed for a death certificate, this record is then used to remove deceased participants from the voter registration list.

Who Gets The $255 Social Security Death Benefit?

The Social Security Administration (SSA) provides a lump-sum payout of $255 to qualified individuals following the death of a loved one. In order to receive this benefit, you must first apply by calling the Social Security office at 800-772-1213. The following individuals may qualify if they meet criteria outlined by the SSA:

  • Surviving spouse
  • A widow
  • A surviving divorced spouse
  • An eligible child

What Happens To A Person’s Estate After They Die?

If your loved one has an estate plan, it can save you or a loved one from financial loss or litigation on settling an estate. The estate plan helps families determine what happens after a loved one dies. It typically includes the following items:

  • Will
  • Executor
  • Healthcare directives
  • Beneficiary designations

If there is no estate plan, you’ll need to consult state law for details on who receives assets. Generally, it passes to parents, spouse, children or other relatives.

The Bottom Line

Saying goodbye to a loved one is difficult enough without the stress of sorting through paperwork. The best course of action is to identify the most important steps in the process and move forward from there. Take time to review wills, estate plans and life insurance policies. Don’t forget to seek out help and use the resources available to you. Consult family members and experts to avoid managing the process on your own.

References

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021). Where to Write for Vital Records.

Federal Trade Commission consumer information. (2021). Free credit reports.

National Conference of State Legislatures. (2021). Voter registration list maintenance

Social Security Administration. (2021). If you are the survivor.

USA.gov. (2021). Find my state or local election office website.

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I Didn’t Know My Mom Was Dying. Then She Was Gone.

Would things have been better if I had known the truth?

The author as a child with her mother, circa 1994

By Lenika Cruz

The pink notebook my mother kept when she was sick contains 18 entries, most of them shorter than a haiku. The pages list medications and surgeries, the names of family members who sent money, and which body parts hurt and how badly. One entry, from October 1995, reads: “Neck (severe pain) Coming out of the mall to cold air.” I was 5 that day; my sister was 3. We were leaving the mall after taking a family portrait when my parents started panicking—about exactly what, I didn’t know. I just remember my dad rushing my mom home because of what I later learned was an excruciating neck spasm. Hours later, an ambulance took her to the hospital for the last time. Four months later, she was gone.

One strange thing about losing a parent so young is that you might forget which details you learned about their death and when; you might also question whether what you remember is the truth or a distortion. At some point during the first decade of my life—I’m not sure when or how—I became aware that my mom had died of breast cancer. Last month, I asked my father how much my sister and I knew about our mother’s illness at the time, if we understood that we might soon lose her. “I don’t know if we ever told you,” he admitted. “Your mom wanted to shield you both from that stuff. She always wanted to protect you.” I figured, then, that we had learned the truth from overhearing conversations between the grown-ups around us—and I wondered whether it would have been better if we had known before she passed.

What should you say to a child when a parent is dying? The answers to this impossible question generally fall into two buckets: Tell them the truth or protect them from the truth. The most persuasive arguments in either direction prioritize what would be best for the child. My colleague Caitlin Flanagan wroteabout why she and her husband told their then-5-year-old sons that she had breast cancer: “I thought I had the power to protect them from hardship. No one has that … But endurance is built into the human condition, and it’s as powerful in children as it is in adults.” In a 2019Atlantic essay, Jon Mehlman explained why he and his wife chose not to tell their three young daughters about her cancer for seven years—until a month before her death: “Our kids would not be robbed of stability; protecting their sense of the ordinary was everything.” Later, his daughters told him they were grateful not to have known for so long.

The author's mother, Tomo, when she was younger and healthy
The author’s mother on her honeymoon in Japan

Reading these accounts, I felt conflicted about my own experience. I hadn’t known my mom’s diagnosis, and no one explained to me what a mastectomy or chemotherapy was, but I witnessed plenty of signs that she was declining. I saw her without her wig after all her hair fell out. I knew that she sometimes didn’t feel well, and I would visit her in the hospital, where I’d push her wheelchair and play with the automatic-recline button on her bed. I understood during those dark months that things weren’t normal, but I still remember myself as a happy child. I know now that memories can be faulty, and I wonder if it’s truly possible for a child surrounded by so much evidence of suffering—and denied the full truth about that suffering—to emerge from that experience unscathed.

Was I simply too young to understand mortality? Linda Goldman, a grief counselor and the author of several books on children and loss, told me that, contrary to what many adults believe, small children are not too young to feel sad about death. “Kids can love when they’re toddlers, and they can grieve. They’ll cry when a goldfish dies!” she said. And when it comes to a parent’s illness, Goldman explained, children are more perceptive than many adults give them credit for: “Kids are pretty savvy, and they take in what’s going on in their environment even if they’re not told the truth.”

While she acknowledged that the question of preparing children for loss has “no black-and-white answer,” she does recommend being honest about a loved one’s illness or death in an age-appropriate way. That’s because when children sense that they’re being lied to, Goldman said, they can start to fear for their safety and become distrustful. I told her that I had been wondering whether my parents were wrong not to have prepared me and my sister for my mom’s death, and whether I wasn’t really as happy as I remembered.

But the more we talked, the more I realized that fixating on a binary question—to tell children or not tell them?—obscures the many other factors that shape how a child will process loss. For instance, Goldman explained how having a memory of helping a dying family member—giving them flowers, bringing them medicine, making them laugh—can make children feel useful, and be an enormous psychological comfort. I thought of how one of my strongest memories of my mom’s illness is helping her reverse the car when she was driving. By that point, the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and turning her neck hurt, so I would look back for her and let her know whether the coast was clear.

So much, too, depends on the ability of adults to cope with the situation. “I’ve found that kids can handle what adults can handle,” Goldman said, noting that children look to grown-ups for emotional cues. When we spoke recently, my dad told me something I had never known before: that back then, even hehadn’t truly believed that his wife might die. He had always thought that she would pull through somehow. Perhaps that naïveté or stubborn faith—whatever you want to call it—had the unintended consequence of shielding me and my sister. Goldman also said that when parents are struggling, children need to have adults around them whom they know they can depend on. While my dad was balancing a full-time job with helping to care for my mother, my mom’s parents came to stay with us and looked after me and my sister. At no point did we have to feel abandoned or alone.

Being able to say goodbye—whether before or after a parent dies—is crucial as well, Goldman said. Even though I didn’t know that my mom was nearing the end, I was at the hospital all the time during her final weeks. And hours after she passed, according to my father, I took him by the hand and led him toward her hospital room. Then I crawled into the bed next to her and started touching her face and talking to her, even though she could no longer respond. A week later, at her funeral, my sister and I stood next to her coffin the entire time. Sometimes, Goldman said, adults want to keep children away from funerals and other rituals of loss: “We’re so death-phobic that it’s hard to admit that death is a part of life.” But these moments can offer valuable opportunities for closure, even if the search for answers and feelings of loss never quite go away.

When I called Goldman, I was half-expecting her to tell me all the ways I must have remembered something incorrectly, to point out the holes in my story. Instead, she gave me a deeper appreciation not only for what my parents had to go through, but also for the ways in which my 5-year-old brain had allowed me to come away from that painful time carrying warmly lit scenes of my mother: Even with IVs coming out of her, with a terry-cloth cap keeping her bare head warm, she looked so pretty laughing.

Somehow, when my parents made what some therapists might call mistakes, the results still had a certain beauty to them. Goldman said adults should be careful with clichés about death, such as telling young children that someone who is dying is simply “going to sleep” or that they will be “watching over you all the time.” Kids might take these words literally and become afraid of sleeping or worry about being surveilled. Like many other children, I was told that my mother would be “watching me from up in heaven,” a place I understood only as being somewhere in the sky. Two weeks after she died, we flew back to Guam, the island where my parents first met, where we would bury her. I had the window seat. Staring out over the left wing of the plane, I searched for her among the clouds

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