It’s Dying Matters Awareness Week – the idea is to get people talking about the things we don’t usually talk about – and today’s theme is “funeral costs”.
This is something I know about, as I was involved in arranging two funerals last year.
My father-in-law died in the summer and we used the Co-op to arrange the funeral, because it was up north and that’s what people do.
They are fairly upfront about costs, and you get a discount if you’re a Co-op member. We also got it cheaper because we chose an earlier time slot at the crematorium. It was a small, simple event.
When my mum died last winter, things were more complicated. Because she was a practising Christian, we needed to involve her church (which would add to the third party costs). And because she was a pillar of the community, we knew there’d be a lot of people there (who might want feeding).
We also had my mum’s instructions. She’d been planning her death admin for years – before she knew she was ill – because she was always a very organised person and she knew she was getting old. So we had to do what she had told us. It wasn’t cheap, but she’d also taken out life insurance to cover the costs, so we didn’t mind too much because it didn’t feel like it was our money.
Mum told us to use the local firm that she’d used for other family funerals, so we did. It turned out they weren’t a local firm any more, despite having the same name: they were part of a big chain, with prices to match.
Here’s a clue: we asked about the cost of a willow coffin and were told it would be over £1,000. Now go and Google willow coffins. Yes, you can get one for £160.
We didn’t get a willow coffin. We got the bog-standard pretend-antique wood one.
And we were told what else we had to buy, like embalming for Mum – something we didn’t want or need but were told was compulsory if people would be visiting her in the “chapel of rest”.
We also ended up getting things we hadn’t asked for: a personalised “memory box” to put our sympathy cards in, prints of the photo we’d used for the order of service (not the picture I’d have chosen, if they’d asked). Oh, and two packets of forget-me-not seeds. Yes, these little extras were thrown in as part of the package, but I’d have preferred a cheaper package. The final bill had a sort of breakdown of the costs, but it wasn’t very transparent.
They were very good on the day, but I’m sure someone else would have been too – and might not have cost so much.
Then there was the wake. Because we were expecting a lot of people, the church hall wasn’t going to be large enough. Mum had suggested the local leisure club, because she’d been to events there, so that’s what we went with. It cost hundreds of pounds, the service was poor and the food was mediocre. And in the end, we over-catered because we didn’t know how many people would come. The church was full, but most people didn’t stay.
So I wished I’d done it differently. After last year, I know a lot about dying, death and the aftermath that I wish I’d known earlier. But you only get one chance at this sort of thing.
This is what I would have done:
- Shopped around for funeral directors.
- Bought and decorated a coffin, like the people we saw on Miriam’s Dead Good Adventure. (Bearing in mind that funeral directors charge you for doing this – a bit like bringing your own bottle to a restaurant.)
- Had the wake in the church hall (with overflow into the church), and asked the WI to supply cake.
- Invited close family back to the house, and emptied my mum’s drinks cabinet.
The other Dying Matters theme – the one that covers the whole week – is “Are we ready?”
I’m not, yet, but maybe I’ll look into choosing my own coffin one of these days.
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