Michael Krasny, host of Forum, a radio program on KQED, focused on the logistics of death in a 52-minute long program on Monday, 10-14-13. One guest was attorney Scott Taylor Smith, author of the new book “When Someone Dies: The Practical Guide to the Logistics of Death.”
Scott Taylor Smith said that as soon as his mother died, the questions began, despite his grief. First, what mortuary did he intend to use? Second, the mortuary wanted to know how many death certificates he wanted. (His suggested answer is take the number of credit cards someone has and multiply by two. That’s how many death certificates you may need.)
He suggests that you write the obituary and plan the memorial before the person dies. For his mother, the family wanted to have a celebratory event. This meant that they waited 6 months after her death before having the celebration.
Scott Taylor Smith talks about conflict in his family over the use of morphine for his mother.
Another guest was Jim Mitchell, an estate lawyer with Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass in San Francisco. He talked about probate and revocable trusts. He was asked the downside of setting up a trust; his reply – “attorney’s fees.” He discussed “permanent” estate tax legislation.
Jim Mitchell talked about two powers of attorney documents: medical and financial. He recommends consulting with an attorney on these documents but noted that they are available online.
A couple of the callers mentioned the POLST form. This form must be signed by someone’s MD. See capolst.org.
You can find an audio recording here:
www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201310141000
I looked over the comments, gleaning one resource and one suggestion:
* everplans.com: “articles, tips, and checklists to help people with everything from who to call first to how to choose a casket to what the various religious traditions are”
* “Death Certificates are expensive, as well as awkward to obtain. Good News: you can actually request that the various agencies, institutions, et cetera which require presentation of theses documents RETURN them to you (include a SASE with a note. Almost all of them will do so. The really only need to see (and then copy) same. The only exceptions for me were real estate-related (mortgage-holders). Even Social Security returned the certificate. I “recycled” several of them, and in doing, saved myself a lot of money, time and effort.”
Robin