So, someone close to you has decided to go to the Great Void. They said bon voyage to the hellish landscape that is our world today and quietly whispered, "Peace out, it's cool, it's all cool," while they drifted off somewhere unknown.
Now what? Great, it’s all cool for them, but now what about you? What about their stuff? What about their unnecessary human body that they have no use for any longer? People that need to be contacted? It’s all cool beans and roses for them, but now others are left to ponder what happens next. Well, if you’re lucky, your friend/loved one and you will have others close by who will be able to shoulder some of this process. But if not, or if the others are doing their necessary due process of grieving, you may be left doing the majority of these things on your own. But fear not because those close friends/family members will still be there when the time comes for you to enjoy your piece of the grief cake.
For now, let's pretend you are the one managing this situation and doing it in the best way you humanly can, given these circumstances. Below, I will provide you with a useful, step-by-step process on how to attempt to be your loved one's manager when their time comes. All of these can also be found online, of course, on various cremation and funeral home websites. But they all list out the same things to everyone who visits the site. My steps are a bit more realistic, with a few jabs at jokes along the way to lighten the mood.
At the end of the day, remember that your loved one has already peaced-out, and most of these steps do not have a time constraint on them. They can be done in due time, at a manageable pace suited for a grieving human. No one expects you to be a robot. Without further ado, let’s get down to the business of aftercare for the recently released…
You're loved one has passed away, and you happened to be the first one to find their human meat skin – If this is the scenario you are in, calling 911 is always the first step. They will send the necessary individuals to come and handle the situation accordingly. There may seem to be more people than necessary there, but don't worry. Everyone that is there has been there and done that and won't bug you much. They may ask you a few questions as they go through the house to make sure there wasn't any unknown cause of their passing (like a wild bear hiding in the closet), and then gently take them away to their human meat skin's next home.
Calling their loved ones and work – As grim as this sounds, your next step is not easy, but it must be done. At this point in time, you are not going to be functioning well, if at all. Get a swig of alcohol in you to help dull this a bit. It may have been several hours or a day before you get to this. But the sooner, the better. If the police took their phone, you may have to wait a few days to get ahold of some of these individuals, but do what you can on your end. If necessary, a post on social media will at least get the word out to those who followed them, so that takes a few phone calls out of the rotation. Deciding what to do with their meat skin once it’s time for this – Depending on how everything occurred, you may have a week or so to figure this out. Hopefully, your friend made it known to you at some point how they wanted to be handled in this scenario. If not, and if money is a concern, remember that their meat skin is no longer necessary for them and that cremation is an acceptable option—especially if you would like to take them to Oaks Park with you in the future. Cremation will require their next of kin to be involved. So, this may get a bit messy if you’re trying to do most of this on your own or if their next of kin is not quite stable enough to handle this.
Find their will – If your loved one was smart enough to consider future death matters and they made a will, hopefully, they let you or someone close to them know where this is. If not, good luck going through all of their books, belongings, and rooms in their house/apartment with a fine-tooth comb—like searching for lice. Do what you can to find it. It may also be at a bank, so if you have that information, bring their next of kin along and get that situated.
Finances – So your loved one had some debt and maybe a house. If you can, try to find other close individuals to them, who can help you with managing some of this debt. Especially if there are kids involved, do what you can to make this easy for when they grow up.
Have a memorial or something – I say “or something” because when this occurred with me, I was left to do a good majority of the planning. I am not, nor have I ever been, a party planner. Planning is one of my Achilles heels. But we did it. Our friends came through wonderfully, Dolly Parton was involved, and it was a fine get-together. It was more like a "send-off party" that I am pretty sure my friend would have wanted to come to. I could almost hear them snort-laughing in the kitchen when I set fire to something I was cooking, I swear.
Aftercare – So, you have your friend in their handy container, you've put the googly eyes on them, which turn out to be glow in the dark and somewhat creepy at night, found the will, had the party, didn't set yourself on fire, handled finances, now what? Self-care. That's right. Probably the most challenging part of all of this after losing your loved one involves your own care. Here are a few things I recommend doing when you get to this step: get a massage (I haven't done this yet, but I think I plan on it?), binge a TV show (old anime, Bob's Burgers, Parks and Rec, anything you can zone out to), write a physical letter to your friend, start a journal, hang out with a close friend who's a trash-sister from another mister that won't judge, dye your hair, yell out the window at a fat squirrel eating your bird seed, reorganize the kitchen and yell at all your spoons, see a movie even if you won't like it, sit down for five minutes in silence and stare at your living room.
At the end of it all, this process is complex, and there are dozens of smaller steps involved. Remember to take deep breaths like a Zen master sometimes and get a good night's sleep here and there. Chances are you'll probably be up wondering a bunch of what-ifs, but it's pointless, so turning the whole thing into a macabre joke is how I personally have been handling this. It's working alright so far. Even the squirrel is still getting fed—stupid, fat jerk.
My friend would have said something like this to us all, “Shut up bitch, I love you.”—meaning, chill out, it's cool beans, go eat something other than chips. And with that, I wish you the best of luck. Save this article for future needs. And feel free not to reach out to me about how to handle this sort of thing because we're all flying by the seat of our pants here.
