What Planning Death Allowed Me to Do
“Look, Mom. Light blue. You love light blue,” I point to a photo in the brochure.
“I do. That looks perfect. So pretty. But it’s expensive.”
“Well, it’s once in a lifetime,” I chirp sardonically.
The man across the dining table chuckled, “That it is. That it is.”
Mom smiled sweetly and nodded. The man wrote down a number on his clipboard, “Mother of Pearl inlay. Very nice touch.”
There’s a curious moment in life when planning for death feels like shopping for clothes. No. Like shopping for a wedding dress. That moment for my family was in 1998. Dad was in the hospital after a heart attack and expecting a full recovery. And because of that, he was missing an important meeting with the Neptune Society. I would later joke with him that he faked his heart attack to avoid the meeting. Both of my parents were pragmatists about death. They knew it was inevitable and if they thought I could legally just toss them in the kitchen trashcan when they died, they would have requested that. Actually, Dad preferred that so much, I think that’s why he hated the idea of that meeting. He knew they would push the gun salute for him. He’d hate the price for an urn, “Just put me in a Ziplock and throw me in the ocean or something.”
Mom, however, was more traditional and cared what the neighbors thought. So the Neptune Society was a logical choice to get everything planned and paid for so when the time came, I simply had to call a phone number. And as an only child, this was definitely worth the awkward jokes from all sides of the meeting. Mom asked me to join not because she wanted me there for moral support, but because English was her second language and it made her nervous not having Dad there. Or so she said.
We talked about Dad’s Navy experience and how that translated into his funeral details. Mom had an easier time planning his details by simply going along with whatever seemed best. We both struggled with her planning. She was so nervous and I could tell the language barrier was only a piece of her discomfort. But, with the strength mothers possess, she powered through the discomfort and patted my hand when I didn’t do as well. The thought of losing them, especially my powerhouse of a father, was completely out of my realm of possible events.
The representative was a nice enough man. He had obviously done this for years because he casually discussed urns and gun salutes as if they were details of a future family cruise. I recall he got a nosebleed during the meeting, and I found it a relief to deal with getting him some tissues instead of my parents’ permanent containers. As he left, he handed my mother two white folders and sniffled out to his car. When he was gone, Mom put the folders in a small metal box with the house deed and car titles. She told me not to forget where she was putting it and placed it in a very deep, dark corner of the bedroom closet.
These urns – Dad’s very military, steel, blank urn and Mom’s frilly baby blue vase – would someday hold the two people who watched me take my first steps and scolded me for coming home late as a teenager, smelling like beer. All that laughter, fighting, crying, silence…forever on a shelf at a mortuary two counties east of where we sat.
That time came for my Dad in 2020. When the hospital brought him, we had made a space in the living room so he could look into the backyard, his favorite place to be. The hospice nurse asked if we had planned his funeral earlier. Mom found Dad’s white folder and we placed it next to the hospice’s daily log.
Dad lasted a few days. And in that time, I didn’t plan his funeral. I knew the phone number was all that was needed. So on those days, I sat next to him and watched movies. I read the newspaper to him. I chatted with nurses in a way I know he would have chatted with them if only more life was in him.
Most importantly, I was not distracted by funeral arrangements, so I could notice my mother. Her behavior was uncharacteristically scatter-brained. I assumed it was grief. But she would put blankets on Dad even though it was the middle of summer. Mom was always serious. Stern. But in these days, she would pat my father on the head and talk like a child. She would pout as she talked to him. I didn’t grasp it yet, but I noticed it. My mother was dying, too. But she was dying of a much longer death – Alzheimer’s.
When Dad passed, the hospice nurse told me it was time to call the number. There was no scramble, no frantic rush. Just a call. The pre-arranged details meant I wasn’t drowning in a sea of logistical chaos at a time when my heart was already heavy enough. I took my energy and put it into a three-day, achingly over-thought eulogy and then another 24-hour fret on what to put on Dad’s tombstone.
My parents’ foresight gave me an invaluable gift: emotional energy. Not a lot. But just enough to start my grieving. One of the most memorable aspects of this process was the time I had to ponder over what should be inscribed on my father’s tombstone. It might sound bizarre, but spending hours deciding on just a few words to capture his essence was therapeutic. And I had time to check about 30 times for a typo – a writer’s worst nightmare.
“Beloved Husband and Dad – We Make a Great Team.”
Mom’s folder stayed in that metal box a few more years. And in that time, I was exhausted by being her only child and only caregiver as she battled dementia. Dad was sudden. But Mom’s death, in many ways, was that same day. And when her body caught up to her brain and she passed in the same spot in our living room three years after Dad, I was burned out. I had no energy at all for death. I walked into the kitchen where the morphine sat, placed it in its box, this time knowing how to dispose of it. This time, knowing the call after the mortuary should be the medical equipment rental. This time, knowing so much more and still being lost. And this time, that phone number was more than a little help. It was what kept me sane.
My best friend was with me when my mother took her last breath. And we were able to make that phone call and spend the rest of the day and into the night, listening to my parents’ records on their 1965 Magnavox – the soundtrack of their marriage.
The records spun their familiar tunes, the living room filled with our laughter and tears, as we remembered my parents. The crackling sound of the record player wasn’t just background noise; it was a portal to countless memories, a gentle reminder that even in our darkest moments, there was room for joy.
Since they planned to be buried together, I had to write a whole new tombstone when Mom was interred. A writer’s second worst fear – a rewrite.
“Family Bonded by Love and Loyalty”
