death of a loved one (My Experience Of Bereavement)

Member Name: divegal

Product:	My Experience Of Bereavement
Date:	09/11/08 (126 review reads)
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I have read a few of the bereavement reviews on here and all of them come from the heart and its good to know that in times when you have lost someone whether to disease or in an accident or whatever that there are people you can talk to even if you have never met them before and sometimes its better that you dont actually know these people.

Sadly its a fact of life that when someone close to you dies apart from the emotions you are feeling at the time you also have to deal with all the legal matters and other family matters at a time when you are more than likely feeling pretty low yourself.

My mother died a few weeks ago after battling with cancer. For the last few months she spent more time in hospital than out and although we all knew that things were not good it still stupidly came as a shock to us all when she did die.

Apart from the death itself I found it difficult to deal with everything that you have to deal with in the first few wekks. From them having to carry out a possible post mortem (thankfully it never came to this) to dealing with the funeral directors, pension people, utility companies etc was a very big learning curve for me and I guess for everyone else who has to do this.

My mom had a rented flat so there was nothing major to sort out in that respect. She also had very little money so that bit was fairly easy too but what I found really hard was going through all her stuff after she died as I only had 3 weeks to clear out the flat.

To be fair most of the stuff she had was compete rubbish but it must have meant something to her and I felt really guilty as I was taking bagfuls of stuff to the tip. I dont think that she had ever thrown away a card in her life whether it be birthday, christmas etc!! there were loads.

I now have a huge box of photos I am going to put into some kind of order to share with the rest of the family.

After having to go through her things in this way made me think really hard about my things and what would happen to all my stuff if I were to suddenly drop down dead tomorrow.

It has also spurred me on to sort out my own finances and important documents. My mom was the traditional one bank account type of person but all mine are online with no letters etc so my family would have a very hard time indeed trying to sort my finances out. I am also going to write a will. I have siad this for ages but its really spurred me on as I had no ideas what funeral wishes my mom had so just carried everything out as if it were for me and what I would like.

She will be missed this Christmas

Summary: sort out your affairs before its too late