Ten years before my mother died at 96, she got all her paper work in order, including Health Care Proxy and Living Will. Then, she and her 86-year-old boy friend began to hang out at the local funeral home…spent enough time there to have become on first-name basis with the funeral directo.
She picked out the plain pine coffin and the conditions (linen shroud, and even paid for the death notices in the NYT and the local paper. She already had a pre-plot next to my father’s in a near-by cemetery.
She was in hospice, in a unit attached to her staged-care facility. Everyone knew her and us. When she died, the staff called the funeral home and told us to let them know when we were ready. The paper work, death certificate, police, happened without anyone needing to bother us. My sister, bro-in-law and I stayed with my mother for an hour or so,, until we felt it was time.
Then the system took over. That was my mother’s last gift to us. In addition to a graveside ceremony, she requested a memorial service at her living facility. That was really nice. The average age was about 87, but everyone had good memories and told stories, some funny and some poignant.