Before I proceed with this column, I want you to know that I’m feeling fine today and I see no clouds on my personal forecast. I also tell you that I’m in my late 60s, and while I can be active, I’m often a couch potato that could stand to shed a few pounds. I expect and hope to live a couple more decades but the world, upon seeing my obituary, should never be surprised if it happens sooner.
That’s all just the setup to tell you that my wife and I made the big decision to prepay our funeral expenses.
It was a big, big decision, indeed but one that we had made a long time ago but just executed last week. My parents had done it, as well as an aunt that I was taking care of in her later years. I remember it having made processing their deaths so much easier that I knew then that this was something that we would handle before anyone else had to do it for us.
In case you’re wondering, the current going rate for what we did, which was the basics — pick up the body, transport it to a crematorium, return the remains to the family, and file the necessary documentation with the county — costs in the neighborhood of $5,000.00 depending upon a variety of options. Like everything else, rising costs, inflation, and other factors will make each year’s cost higher, which is why we bought our policies now. That’s right, even though the outcome couldn’t be in less doubt, what you buy is an insurance policy redeemable upon one’s demise. Which totally makes sense because insurance brings peace of mind and it’s one more thing that neither my wife or I wanted anyone in our families to worry about.
I tell you once again that I’m doing OK. Nothing to worry about and nothing to see here other than a guy making yet another financial decision in what has been a lifetime of them. This one just happens to be one that places the bow on top of, closes the last chapter of, pulls the covers over, or whatever metaphor that my survivors want to use regarding every other decision I’ve ever made.
It will be up to those still above ground to decide what to do to commemorate the occasion of my death or what to do with the remains. We have an ongoing household debate over a couple of things: No.1, which of us is going first? And No. 2, which one of our deaths will the world celebrate more? And yes, it is possible to interpret “celebrate” in more than one way.
Seriously though, even though we both are doing well at the moment, we couldn’t think of a better time to solidify our end-of-life plans.
We’ve accessed our retirement funds in some material ways recently, which also got me thinking. A new car a year or so ago and a new roof a year or two prior to that.
I remember thinking at the time of each that I might be doing those things for the last time in my life. Both because I’m more of a used car than a new-car buyer and because I envisioned owning the new car for a long time and those new shingles had a 25-year warranty — far beyond the life expectancy of a guy like me.
The shiny new car, those durable new shingles and the container that will hold my remains all have the same thing in common — we “earned” them.