Funerals and wills
Feb 8th, 2007 by Bethany
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Colin’s grandfather died last week, as I mentioned before, and we went to the funeral on Monday. It was definitely the least-sad funeral I’ve ever been to. That might sound bad, but I mean it in a good way. Delos was a good man, loved by his family, 96 years old, mostly blind and deaf by this time, and missing his late wife terribly. I think everyone was just mostly pleased that he could die so he could get on with living. The tenderest part of the whole thing for me was watching Colin’s dad and aunts say goodbye before they closed the casket.
Of course, they had to spend some time sorting through Delos’ things and distributing them and cleaning his house. I heard that there were some feelings hurt in the process, even though Delos and Lorraine had taken some pains to be organized and careful about having their things in order and prepared for a time like this. The last funeral I was involved in was the same–although the deceased person had been very careful and specific about their wishes, and the executor had followed instructions closely, there were stll some hurt feelings (even despite everyone’s initial good attitude that “it’s just stuff”).
All this got me to thinking about how we should deal with things in case we were to die. So, Colin and I didn’t do the best thing and write a will, but we did have a discussion and make a phone call. We decided that we’d like my sister, Phoebe, to take care of Degen and Maggie if we were to die. Or, if she’s not able to for some reason (like if she gets married and her husband doesn’t like our kids or something), she gets to have a discussion with the rest of our two families and she has the final say on who takes care of them of those who are willing to help out. We called her and she’s willing to take on the responsibility, so that’s that. And now you know what to do with our sweet little ones in case we die.
