The sudden and unexpected death of a loved one means that you need to handle specific tasks. One of these might be planning the funeral. Unless the person had a pre-arranged funeral, you are going to have to make the decisions. This can be difficult, especially when you are dealing with grief.
When you sit down to start planning the details, you should think about the decedent would want. This dictates some of the points, such as whether you will have an open casket or cremate the person.
You will have to choose the urn or casket for the person. This is often a big decision because of the number of options. You can choose from different materials, styles and colors. Try to think of what your loved one would like, but make sure that it is something you are happy with.
Notifications to family members must be done. The dates of the service might depend on when the family can come in. Most people work with the immediate members to find out when they can make it into town, especially if they live far away.
For some funerals, the cost is a factor. You might not have time to plan for the expenses. This is a bad situation, but you should only do what you can for your loved one. You need to be able to start to move past your grief or at least learn to live with it.
Once you have the immediate needs taken care of, you might decide to seek compensation. This happens in civil court and names the liable parties as the defendants. The goal of these cases is to alleviate the financial pressure related to the death.
