Things Every Family Should Know — But Nobody Teaches Us

What actually happens when someone dies

Who to call in the first 24 hours after a death, in order: where the death happened, hospice or 911, the funeral home, family, and what is time-sensitive.

What happens to your money when you die

What typically happens to bank accounts, credit cards, and household bills after a death, and how to keep things running smoothly during the transition.

Who makes decisions if you can't

A clear explanation of how advance directives, living wills, and healthcare proxies relate to each other, and why most people need more than one document.

What your family needs to know about your passwords

How to set up digital legacy features in advance, so your family doesn't have to navigate platform policies alone after you're gone.

How funeral arrangements actually work

A practical starting point for making funeral arrangements when there's no existing plan, organized in the order most families find it easiest to decide.

What happens if you die without a will

What happens legally when someone dies without a will - how intestate succession works and who typically inherits.

How much dying actually costs

What funerals, cremation, and burial cost in the United States, with 2023 national medians, what they leave out, why prices vary, and what can offset the bill.

What happens to your mortgage

How to handle transferring a vehicle title and continuing mortgage payments after a death.

What happens to your pets

Why pets are easy to overlook in estate planning, and the two main ways - a written designation and a pet trust - to make sure they're genuinely provided for.

What happens to your social media

How to handle a loved one's email, social media, photos, and other digital accounts after their death — an increasingly common part of settling affairs.

Who gets your belongings

How property gets distributed after a death, whether or not a will exists, and what happens without one.

What happens to your body

Gentle, practical guidance on what you can do — and don't need to do — in the time between a death and the funeral home's arrival.

How organ donation actually works

How organ and tissue donation works after a death, and what a family needs (and doesn't need) to do.

What your children should know

Practical, age-based guidance for talking with children about death, including what language to use and avoid.

The documents your family will desperately look for

The documents that matter most for a family during a medical crisis or after a death — and how to ask about them without it being awkward.

What funeral directors wish every family knew

Composite, illustrative reflections drawn from common themes funeral directors describe about their work - not verbatim quotes from a specific named individual.

What happens to your pacemaker

Why battery-powered devices like pacemakers must be removed before cremation, what happens to artificial joints and other metal implants during the process, and whether any of this matters for burial instead.

The photo you won't know is the last one

A reflection on why so many photographs capture occasions rather than the people in them, and why taking a picture with someone - not just of the moment - matters more than most people realize until later.

Who gets your ashes after a divorce

Who has the legal authority to decide what happens to someone's cremated remains after a divorce, and how families sometimes navigate the emotional complexity when an ex-spouse is still involved.

What actually happens to your bones

How long bones actually last underground compared to soft tissue, what affects the timeline, and why this is part of why cemetery burial is treated as permanent.

What happens to your Amazon account

How to close an Amazon account after a death, what happens to a Prime membership, and the often-overlooked limitation on digital purchases like Kindle books and movies not transferring to another account.

Could AI write your own obituary

Whether AI can realistically help write an obituary, including from someone's own digital footprint, and where a family's direct involvement still matters most.