Oh my.. would I be responsible for organising DH funeral now?!

[Overstimulated]

I just woke up from a dream where I attended DH funeral.. but I did just rock up before the service. I was even going to sit at the back🤣 it wasn’t until my mum said “you’re his wife, we should be at the front” that I decided to sit at the front.

anyway, I woke up and now I’m thinking.. I’d have to arrange it wouldn’t?! It wouldn’t Be a case of just receiving a time and date and showing up..🤣 poor DH I feel useless.

anyway, here’s hoping to better dreams 😴💤

Yes you'd have to arrange it. Don't worry the funeral directors can help you with it all. Make sure you've money to pay for it though. My friend's recently was £10k for nothing particularly flash. So either savings or life insurance or a prepaid funeral plan. Or a fat credit card limit that you're not using. They want part-payment upfront.

My grandmother prepaid her funeral and it was so easy my mother bought two, one for her and one for my dad.

But even with that, and mum being terminally ill, not everything was organised, it's something people should talk about and plan for.

As for me, my body will be dissected by medical students.

I’m not having a funeral, so when I go, there won’t be much to arrange and nothing to attend. Sorted!!

My parents have done their orders of service, right down to funeral director, photo slide show, obits and hymns.

My dad didn't want and didn't have a funeral, his body went straight from the hospital to the funeral director and he was then cremated when they had a spare slot. He organised it all before his death but it still cost £3000. Expensive business dying.

if they want it. there’s an excess of bodies left to medical research and you’d still need direct cremation at the least afterwards

Have you arranged for your body to be dissected by students? The reason I ask is that when my great aunt wanted that it was really quite complicated to arrange and apparently medical students don't want just any old dead body to practice on, they want interesting cases. "Fortunately" my aunt was accepted. It did mean no body for a funeral though, so we had just a memorial service.

Yes you would but it was a dream and unless you have a large age gap it’s maybe 50:50 who goes first plus if (hopefully) you are both very aged your dc will organise it!

As worrying as it is, you do find inner strength with these things. It’s real for my dc as their dad (my ex) is terminal and I’ve promised to help as required partly because I do this for a living. I’ve got two family’s coming in to discuss their services today, which means I need to get on and vacuum my office as it’s got crumbs on the floor!

Who did you think was going to organise your husbands funeral?

I suppose he’d have to arrange yours
if you pop off first .

I did a direct cremation for dh. Very civilised and no insincere relatives turning up pretending they’ll miss him (complex family ishoos)

Its not great though.

He’s not died and it was a dream so it’s fine until that day comes. 🤷‍♀️

My relative had arranged to donate her body to local university. Then died suddenly (heart) as she needed a post mortem they then declined the donation.

Yes, you would, I was in my 30s when I had to arrange DH’s. I had only been to a couple of funerals and we had never discussed what we would want. I had a wonderful funeral director who helped me make huge decisions at the worst time of my life, and, fortunately, I get on well with his family and we jointly made some of the decisions. For you, it was just a bad dream, but no one thinks this will happen to them, maybe use it to start the conversation even though the chances are that you won’t need to for many years though I don’t know how old you and your DH are.

Yes you'd have to arrange it - so to make things easier, get your DH to write doen exactly what he wants and then just hand the list over the funeral directors. I've done this, although my family think I'm morbid - but it's 100% going to happen to me so I might as well be prepared.

My DH died last year. He definitely didn’t want a funeral. It was a massive relief. When he died I couldn’t believe the mountain of admin you have to wade through. I felt so stressed and that I had a mountain to climb every day. I was so grateful to him for not wanting a funeral. It was so typical of him. He never wanted any fuss and hated wasting money.

I lhave a life limiting condition and looked into it, finding the opposite. Unless it's changed recently, they didn't want necessarily perfect and young, but they did want 'normal.' When I go into hospital I often have medical students come and interview me because I'm seen as a rare and interesting case, a one in a million, but strangely my body would not be wanted after death because of it.
I'm a huge fan of Professor (Dame) Sue Black, the forensic anthropologist, and that lead me to look at Aberdeen and their need for bodies and what they were looking for. I thought I might serve a purpose after death because my organs will be useless. I also found unless you have the logistics for getting to the anatomy department watertight too, you'd at best end up at a body farm type place.

Depending on the circumstances, planning a funeral service or celebration of life, can be a very positive step in the grieving process.
It can bring loved ones together to share memories and history as part of the planning.
It necessitates thinking about the person's life which can be so important if they have been very ill or elderly before their death.

An elderly couple we knew left their bodies to medical science but medical science didn't want both so only took 1. There was no provision made for alternative arrangements so we had to cover one cremation and then wait for the medical science people to be finished with the other before we could scatter the ashes in more or less the same place.

Sounds like a horrible dream OP, but having recently had to help my elderly DM arrange DFs funeral I think people should be encouraged from a fairly young age to talk about what they want and how to fund their funerals. My parents had made no plans at all (I sort of assumed they would privately have discussed it at least) so even though the funeral directors were excellent there was a lot of stress on Mum deciding what he would have wanted (including 'debate' with other family members), making all the arrangements and sorting out how to pay for it all. Funding in particular I think should be discussed as early as possible- when you are grieving it's very difficult to feel you have to factor cost in to the equation but a huge stress to feel that you having to basically agree to find thousands of pounds. In contrast, my Grand-MIL wrote down in great detail exactly what she wanted (in a note book, updated over the years) and took out a finance plan to pay for it all. I know it was a huge comfort to MIL and DH to know they were doing what their loved one wanted and they didn't have to worry about money.

Have you arranged it with the medical school? I only ask because they are very fussy about who they accept! I know two people who were turned down. One was for being too old, despite there not being an official age limit.

Just be aware that not all donated to science bodies are accepted.
You will need a back up plan.

OOPs great minds thinking as one *sashh😝

Sorry fingal🙄I need another coffee.

Be careful with that one. My partners aunt was late 70s when she died two years ago. From mid 60s she told us all about her plan to leave her body to medical science. Her husband rang us after she died to tell us the royal society or whoever had contacted him to say they had too many bodies at present and couldnt take hers. Apparently there was a tiny clause in the agreement about this.
He had to hurriedly make simple cremation arrangements.