I feel like I have to write this now whilst it’s still fresh in my mind.\u00a0 Two weeks ago we lost my mum, it wasn’t a surprise.\u00a0 She had suffered a terrible disease over the previous 12-18 months and whilst her dying wasn’t a surprise, it was still a shock, heart breaking as it turns out, a lot of work.\u00a0 Luckily she left us with some partial funeral wishes I can only imagine how we would have got on with no wishes in place, it would have been a nightmare to organise.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
My mum was a very determined lady.\u00a0 To the point she knew where she wanted her funeral to be, who was to be there, where we were all going after, whether she wanted cremating to burial and after where her remains where to go.\u00a0 Having this information made our life so much easier.\u00a0 What she didn’t tell us was any of the smaller details like what music she would like, any readings or anything along those lines.\u00a0 Not having music choices was actually a big deal that caused a lot of stress, for a week we hunted around trying to find the best music for somebody who only ever listened to the radio.\u00a0 Except as it turns out, in her car.\u00a0 Where CDs gave us the clues we needed to tailor the service to her.\u00a0 I really wish she would have provided that information in her wishes though, we all did.<\/p>\n
Other considerations were also put in place.\u00a0 I can’t tell you how important having a will is.\u00a0 Luckily as a family we’re not really bothered by money but even so having my mum write down what she wanted made life so much easier.\u00a0 Having only found out I was an executor 2 days after she passed was a bit of a shock and having that conversation before would have been helpful \ud83d\ude02 But you can’t have everything.<\/p>\n
Another thing that was a surprise was how the geography of the Isle of Man affected my mums wishes as well.\u00a0 She was always going to use the local funeral director, that was never in doubt.\u00a0 However with us all spread out as far north and south of the island as it was possible to get it made the logistics of organising things incredibly hard.\u00a0 Luckily the time off was not an issue with our employers but it was an added level of stress.\u00a0 I’m trying to write this from a practical point of view and keep as much emotion out of it as possible but I’m sure with hindsight things would have been done differently.\u00a0 Meeting with the celebrant performing the service to talk about my mum over the phone wasn’t ideal, I’m being polite, but because of the requirement to have somebody at the house whilst things were removed meant anything else wasn’t possible.\u00a0 Luckily my brother was able to be there in person but not everybody may be lucky enough to have that.<\/p>\n
A final mention has to go to the Isle of Man Hospice.\u00a0 We are so lucky to have them and it disgusts me to see their funding being kicked around like a political football.\u00a0 If I could give any advice to anybody in a similar situation where you know what is coming down the line, it would be to engage with Hospice as early as possible.\u00a0 What they did for us can’t be put into words.\u00a0 I can’t imagine my mum in the same situation in Nobles.<\/p>\n
Most importantly, speak to your family and let them know what you’ve done, what you want.\u00a0 Dying is difficult enough.\u00a0 I’ve not even really had the chance to start the process of grieving because the reality is everything else has had to be sorted first.\u00a0 From what happens with the body, registering a death, organising a funeral, emptying a house (don’t get me started on the deadlines with that) to piecing together your loved ones practicalities and life.\u00a0 If it’s taught me anything it’s that anything I can do to make that easier for the people I leave behind I’m going to do.<\/p>\n
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I feel like I have to write this now whilst it’s still fresh in my mind.\u00a0 Two weeks ago we lost my mum, it wasn’t a surprise.\u00a0 She had suffered a terrible disease over the previous 12-18 months and whilst her dying wasn’t a surprise, it was still a shock, heart breaking as it turns […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"brand":[],"class_list":["post-41602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-q-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iomonline.net\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iomonline.net\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iomonline.net\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iomonline.net\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iomonline.net\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41602"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.iomonline.net\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41610,"href":"https:\/\/www.iomonline.net\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41602\/revisions\/41610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iomonline.net\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iomonline.net\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iomonline.net\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41602"},{"taxonomy":"brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iomonline.net\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/brand?post=41602"}],"curies":[{"name":"Gracias","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}