Funerals: Tips to Help When your Ex Dies and You Get the Funeral Bill
Of all the things I expected to face after my divorce, burying my ex wasn’t one of them. It’s not that I expected him to live forever, I just didn’t expect him to go so soon, nor did I expect that his burial would be left to me, the ex his family hated.
The shock of a coroner’s visit defies description. One moment everything is sane and normal, the next the world begins to tilt with the words there’s no easy way to tell you this. Most of the words that followed, I never heard. It didn’t matter that much, I suppose. The coroner and his assistant were not here to talk to me. They were here to inform my ex’s next of kin: my children. Next of kin is about the only thing Donnie and I had in common after eight years of divorce. Still, we had spent 20 years of our lives married to one another and the last few years in companionable peace.
I felt the loss, deeply and immediately.I managed to grasp strings of substance from the coroner’s droning account of events, neither our office nor the police suspect foul play. “He was found this morning but passed some time last night”, “thought to step outside for just a few minutes around 10 p.m.”, “died by his own hand”, his mother asked ‘how’ but we cannot legally answer her”.
That last part hit me in the gut. Donnie lived with his parents. It was his elderly mother who found him dead from a self-inflicted gun shot. It was her house cordoned off with official death-scene yellow tape and body-shaped chalk lines. Yet, neither the coroner nor the police could legally answer a single question she asked.
Without thinking, I interrupted the coroner’s muted recounting with a loudly blurted “You have to answer her. You’re torturing her.” It dawned on me that this accusation was unfair; they were merely following the law as law enforcement and legal authorities must do. Abashed, I tried to explain with the mumbled justification: “they’re good people.”
For a moment, I had forgotten how I felt about that woman, my ex-mother-in-law. My mind’s eye saw only a mother who found her child dead and the authorities who refused to explain it. Although I could imagine the scene, I couldn’t picture surviving it.
But, in fact, I was talking about my mother-in-law and the coroner, whose lips were sealed on the matter and manner of the death of her son, would soon blab to her about my response to it.
My and Donnie’s divorce was not a bitter one. Like many failed marriages, the love died years before we called it quits. In our case, love drowned in a succession of Southern Comfort bottles. No amount of AA meetings, rehab sessions, or psychiatrist visits could stop the tsunami of hard alcohol and the waves of abuses that followed. Although I had promised many times that I would leave if he didn’t dry out, life continued in an alcohol-induced haze of horror for many years. When I finally left, he was nonetheless surprised. He did not, however, fight the divorce. He wanted to stay, but I had to drive him away to ensure my own and our children’s safety. In the end, he agreed that it was best for everyone.
We resumed life without rancor and he visited the kids often, usually every other weekend, on holidays, and weekly in the summers, at first while they were in high school and, later, whenever they were home from college. Over the years his pancreas succumbed to the pickling force of alcohol and his health rapidly declined. His version of treatment was to switch addictions from alcohol to prescription painkillers. But he did manage to show up straight and sober for his visits.
I say our divorce was not bitter, and it wasn’t between the two of us, but his mother, well that was another matter.
When she first heard of the impending divorce, she cut my face out of 20 years’ worth of family photographs, even the wedding shots and the hospital-made baby pictures. She also threatened to fight me for custody of my children. And here I sat telling the coroner the woman was good people.
Before we could digest the shock of Donnie’s sudden death, we got hit with the words you need to tell us which funeral home you are using soon. “We haven’t much space at the morgue. The coroner’s office called us repeatedly and often over the next couple of days, pushing us to do something with the body.”
The crisis sprang anew. For one thing, Donnie’s addictions were at such a level that he had trouble holding a job over the years. He had no assets and no life insurance. Our children are broke college kids, who immediately looked to me for help. But, I’m a single mom with two kids in college, not exactly Queen of Ft. Knox or keeper of the family fortune.
We talked to Donnie’s sister and his mother who only asked about the arrangements we were making; there was no hint of an offer to pay for the funeral. We assumed they didn’t have the money either, or that their feelings were still raw from the abuse and abrasiveness only an addict can deliver.
There was also a possibility that they were restricted by their religious beliefs from doing anything in behalf of a suicide. We really didn’t know; after all, my children and I are of a completely different faith. That too, presented a problem. We were racked with doubt over what type of service to hold. Donnie wasn’t a Jehovah Witness like his parents, actually he didn’t belong to any church, but didn’t his traumatized mother deserve a few words of comfort from her faith?
Donnie’s sister, Kathy, did ask us to have the funeral soon for her mother’s sake. The coroner called again, more insistent this time that we do something soon.
It was a horrible experience, with no real help in sight for a grieving family with few options. So I tell you this difficult tale to hopefully spare you the same anguish should you find yourself, one day, sitting in front of the coroner listening to his awful words as he presents them to your kids. Here is what I learned:
1. Social Security death benefits don’t pay enough.
They are only about $200.That doesn’t make a dent on the burial costs which at bare minimum average $1800 for your basic cremation with no urn, casket, plot, or service to show for it. For $1800 or more, you get to take home a cardboard box with a bag full of gray ashes inside.
2. Applying for Social Security death benefits is a nightmare.
There are several hurdles to clear and you aren’t likely to receive the paltry sum in time anyway.
3. The coroner’s office can’t help.
The coroner’s office, although nice enough — was of no assistance in directing us toward any social services that might help. Nor would they take care of the cremation at the morgue. You have to hire a funeral home.
4. Everyone wants payment in full.
Most funeral homes do not offer a payment plan. You have to pay the sum up front before they will do anything. You owe big money from the moment they pick up the body at the morgue.
5. Funeral homes can’t help.
We called several funeral homes and they couldn’t point us toward any social services either. They all offered condolences but no real information other than the cost of services at their own facilities. Cremation, by the way, is far cheaper than any of the alternatives, but the cost varied as much as $500 between funeral homes.
6. Finally, some help.
We called the local office of The Department of Children and Family Services. The lady asked which funeral home had the body. We replied he was still at the morgue. She instructed us to choose a funeral home, tell them to pick up the body, tell the morgue to release the body to the funeral home and then come down to see her immediately to fill out all the necessary forms. She said her office would take care of everything from there. Finally, we found someone who could help.
In the end, the situation resolved itself unexpectedly. Donnie’s sister called and tentatively asked if she and her husband could make the arrangements and pay for the funeral. It turned out that Kathy had a friend in the business which cut her and her husband a really good deal. We were all very thankful for the help.
My children and I were further surprised when Kathy involved us in every decision about the service and greeted us warmly at the funeral home’s door.
I was shocked when she asked me, the dreaded ex, to sit with the family. I expected my children to sit with the family, but me? Kathy’s warm invitation was a relief, as I had no idea what my role was nor what protocol I should follow. There’s nothing out there, no manual, not even a magazine article, that spells out how one should act when death do exes part. Maybe that is as it should be.
At the funeral, you are left with a mixed bag of emotions and all the baggage with your in-laws that you had before. And just as unsettling, miracles can and do happen at the last moment virtually guaranteeing that you won’t be able to predict how the whole thing will unfold.
“The coroner told me what you said about me,” said my ex-mother-in-law, just prior to the service. “He said you stood up for me and called me ‘good people.'” Her voice was dry, and her face empty of any clue as to what she thought of this information. I merely nodded, not sure what to say.
“Was I a good mother-in-law?” she asked. Someone told me later that the people standing around me froze. I looked at her and said, quite truthfully, “Yes, you were, and are still.” She has two other married children, after all.
She thought for a second, nodded gravely and walked away. But not before she asked me to come by the house after the service.
My best advice, should this happen to you, is to start with the Department of Children and Family services if you need help with burying your ex. Don’t hesitate to pass the hat among family members, even the estranged ones, if you need to. Then go to the funeral with no expectations “ good or bad “ and an open mind. You may just find that the people you dread to see the most are just good people” in the end. In my case, maybe my heart already knew that and the words I blurted were merely a truth I had hidden from myself.
If this hasn’t happened to you, but there is a chance it could, go buy a small life insurance policy on your ex (for the sake of your kids) to prevent such an event from happening at all. And finally, if you are in the place where Donnie was, I want to say to you what I would say toDonnie if I could have: “We are not better off without you. Please, please stay!”
