Instructions for Burying Your Father

Warning: Complete with a friend or family member. Team lift only.

Thank you for purchasing this kit. Due to the rising costs of reality, there are no refunds. The only way out is through.

Step 1. Unpack box.
Contents:
-5 death certificates
-a notebook full of instructions
-a notebook full of room for notes
-form for funeral home
-form for gravestone
-a how-to-write an obituary kit

Not included: financial assistance, passwords to accounts, power of attorney, movers, cleaners, streamlined bureaucracy, answers, reassurance, closure.

Note: You should already have been through the traumatic experience of seeing your dad wither away in a hospital bed. You should be done crying. He should be cremated by now. You should’ve already picked out the urn.

Warning: That was just the beginning.

Recommended: Try to forget the feeling of walking out of the hospital with your dad’s wallet in your pocket.

Step 2. Plan

-Use the forms in Box A to plan everything. Think about what your dad would’ve wanted. Don’t think about it too much.

Recommended: ask for help from family and friends. Lean on them for support.

Recommended: don’t hold in the tears when you think about what he loved most and how he’d like to be remembered.

Not Optional: Giving up.

Step 3. Follow the Paper Trail

-Spend 8-10 months hunting down leads on insurance, accounts, and reading through six boxes of paperwork so you don’t miss anything.

-Warning: Things will go wrong, sideways, missing, and found. There will be more phone calls than you think.

You will call: the hospital, the bank, the other bank, the courthouse, the funeral home, the
landlord, the utilities company, your human resources, his human resources, and the insurance
company.
Repeat ad infinitum.

-Warning: Someone from the hospital is going to call you every few weeks to make sure you won’t kill yourself over grief. Her name is Susan. Block her number. She keeps bringing up a god you don’t believe in.

Step 4. Plan the Funeral

-Write the Eulogy

Remember to ignore how you’ve been planning it for years. Ignore that you picked out those quotes when you read Lord of the Rings last year for this occasion.

-Invite his Best Friends

Ask them if they want to speak. Don’t cry when they hug you.

-Gather things to give them back. Don’t forget the pictures of them smiling.

Find the sword in the closet that dad told you about on his deathbed. Give it to his best friend. Pretend it’s a quest to get through.

-Invite your Best Friends

You’re the first with a parent's death. You’ll go to their parents’ funerals too. You need them to show up. It’s more important than you think.

-Invite the Family Preacher

Ignore that you’re an atheist. Ignore that dad barely went to church. Ignore how awkward it is to ask the guy to not get too preachy. Shake his hand anyway. Ignore his Facebook friend request.

Step 5. Remember that Work is Still Happening

-And life. And normal stuff. Remember to eat, and grade papers, and take your vitamins.

-Remember that your dad is dead and we have no answers. Or closure. Neither will you.

Note: Closure does not exist.

Step 6. Put it Off. Until you can’t.

-Forget about the gravestone for a while. Your aunt still doesn’t have one, and he’s next to her. There’s no rush. He’s not going anywhere. Think about how to sum up his life in 26 by 12 inches of black granite.

-Go back home over the summer. This part is important:

Clean out the rest of his stuff. Photos, things, furniture, trash. A lot of trash.

Tip: Burn incense to cover the smell of cigarette smoke.

-Run all over the city, get things notarized, speak to six different people in three buildings about the same issue.

Note: More forms will be involved. And more phone calls.

Note: Postage costs more than you think.

Note: Do not yell at the people trying to help you. Apologize if you do.

Note: Eventually, you will think the paperwork is done. It is not. In a few months, there will be more paperwork.

Step 7. The End is Nigh

-Did you enjoy that title? By now you should be experiencing some levity.

-This step can be difficult. Remember, team lift only in this analogy. Don’t isolate yourself.

-There is no ending to this. Did you read the previous steps? No closure. No answers. Only checking things off the list.

Troubleshooting: Your list isn’t done? It won’t be.

Note: No refunds. The only way out is through