I don’t really know how to start off this post, but I think the title pretty much sums up what I am going to talk about. Our relative that fought so hard for life, lost her battle a few days ago. When she started taking a turn for the worst, funeral arrangements had to be made. My husband was one of the closest to her and while we knew the day might come, let’s just say it hasn’t been easy.
What hit us all the most was that all of this should have been done–planned and paid for years ago. She was already getting up there in age, but nobody wanted to even talk about death or funerals or any of that stuff. Luckily, her plot was paid for by one her kids when her husband died years ago. However, everything else was not. We found out that buying the plot years ago saved the family thousands of dollars now. However, prices on everything else seemed to have skyrocketed. Trying to bury someone when everyone is having financial difficulties is not easy. If you have not looked into funeral costs–do it now! My husband and I were thinking to ourselves “how the heck does someone without any family or money get buried?”.
All of our savings would not have even covered half of her very simple funeral, but my husband and I would have given whatever we could to make sure she had a proper burial. Right away though, her sons stepped up and paid for it all…no matter what financial burden it was going to put them in. If they didn’t pay for it, I can’t even begin to wonder how the funeral would be paid for. ***Her final request was not to be cremated.*** Can you believe that many of these funeral homes allow payment plans while the person is alive, but not when they are gone? Even then, after reading over all the fine print–it seemed to me that you are actually paying more when you prepay–like a credit card kind of. I guess that is where credit comes in. I know if I had my $13,500 Chase card, the funeral would have been covered. But then again, if I had, I don’t know…15k in the bank in savings it would have covered it too. How many people though nowadays have that kind of money saved up? Seriously.
The funeral went on and she is in a much better place now. It’s hard on the family, and will be for a while. It definitely got us thinking more and more about life and death. When she died, she had nothing to leave…no life insurance, no house to sell, no estate for any family to fight over…nothing. I only wish we could have planned for her burial beforehand because we could have concentrated more on celebrating her life, rather than worrying about how we were going to pay for her burial.
Sorry for the somber post guys, I guess what I am really trying to get at here is that we are all going to die…eventually. I touched on the life insurance subject before but even I didn’t stick with it. Currently I have life insurance for myself through my work in the total of $80k. It’s not that bad, but it isn’t great either. My funeral alone would eat up a good portion. And seeing I am the sole provider in the house right now, my husband would be screwed. But, if my husband dies, I am in even more trouble because I don’t have enough to bury him. And his money helps pay many of our bills, I would be lost.
Earlier this month, I got all my renewal paperwork for my life insurance. I am considering upping my policy or looking elsewhere for a family plan. God forbid something happen to one of the kids too. Yeah, we don’t want to talk about it or think about it until it happens, but it could. I have a lot of work to do on this stuff. But I know I can’t procrastinate any longer. This experience opened my eyes and I see things in a whole new perspective.
I took a week off of work for all of this but go back tomorrow. I have a lot of soul searching to do..a lot. If you read my last post about redeeming the time, you will see what I am talking about. I am not so sure I want to keep living every day unfocused, unhappy, negative, defeated. This family member would always ask why I didn’t come visit her more often, and my husband would tell her that I was always working. And she would shrug it off and say that I worked too much. I do feel guilty about it now. In the past few months I have been trying to lessen my hours at my day job, do more writing at home that I love, and try to spend more time with family I have pushed away for so long. Because in the end, they are the ones that will be there–not my job.
So the point of my rambling here, is to start planning for things like this. Inquire about funeral costs, start thinking about your final arrangements. Try to get life insurance if you can. The day will come–I know we all want it later rather than sooner, but we have no control over it. When it is our time, it is our time.
Tags: funeral, Life insurance
