Mike Langeland | Funeral Planning

How to Plan Ahead to Minimize Stress During Times of Grief

At the funeral home, I wear many hats, but my primary job continues to be serving families when their loved one has died. Our funeral professionals walk with client families through the pain of acute loss, helping them to engage their emotional, relational, and spiritual needs.

How can something so profoundly difficult be made simpler for everyone? A life legacy plan can really make a difference.

Stress for families experiencing loss comes from two primary directions:

Family function/dysfunction; and
Financial concerns

A true life legacy prepares a plan that will eliminate or minimize these stresses.

Many blended families get along well; others can’t even be in the same building together. Doing the preliminary groundwork to plan a funeral that eliminates familial strife will greatly moderate family stress. With or without a plan, decisions still need to be made, but under emotional stress and possibly with unsettling unknowns.

Financial stress for families experiencing loss is equally challenging. People suddenly experiencing loss are often unaware of monetary assets, life insurance, retirement accounts, as well as outstanding debts. Nothing adds stress to a funeral conference than people looking around the room at each other for who is going to pay for mom’s or dad’s funeral!

A prepaid funeral, or a simple plan with well-communicated explanations of what assets are available to care for the financial obligations will alleviate the financial unknown stress.

Every death experience is unique in its intensity, level of tragedy, and suddenness or expectedness. Standing in the aftermath of this life-changing experience is challenging for families as well as the funeral director.

Having a life legacy plan in place for the loss experience relieves anxiety and stress for everyone involved. While it is one of the hardest things people will ever do, our funeral professionals will strive to provide order in the great chaos of death and loss.

The best decisions for every family always will be made minus family strife and financial stress. The best decisions are also always made together versus alone. Navigating loss without a plan is profoundly challenging in the fog of death, acute loss, and grief.

Do your family a great favor by choosing to have difficult conversations now and planning ahead to reduce future stress, uncertainty, and potential disagreements. Be proactive — grant your family members the opportunity to appropriately grieve your passing by developing a plan in advance. In doing so, you will be a blessing.

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