The Paperwork After a Death
For the weeks of paperwork that follow a death, when the forms arrive faster than the grief allows. It gets the certificates and the account list in one place, holds the pace to one call a day, and postpones every decision that can wait.
Affairs · Grief · Stress · 9 items · once a week
The checklist
- Get ten copies of the death certificate — almost every office wants one of its own.
- Make one list of every account and policy — the hunting is the part that exhausts people.
- Tell the bank and the pension first — those two unlock or freeze most of the rest.
- Do one call a day, not six — each one costs more than it looks like it will.
- Keep a notebook by the phone — names, dates and reference numbers you will need twice.
- Let someone else make the calls you dread — a friend can say the sentence you cannot.
- Say no to any decision that can wait — the house and the clothes are not this month's job.
- Expect a form to undo you — grief does not wait for a convenient moment.
- Call or text 988 if it gets too heavy — the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline answers day and night.
Use this checklist Free account: tick items off and keep each day's record.
How to use it
Run through it once a week, honestly and without scoring yourself. A checklist is a way of noticing, not a test: an item you cannot tick is information about the day, not a verdict on you. Over a few weeks the pattern of what gets ticked and what does not says more than any single pass.
With a free Theraglee account the checklist remembers each pass, so you can look back. Without one, you can still read it here and keep your own copy.