I dread my mementoes of a lifetime being treated like rubbish

Recently, I came across this letter written to Bel Mooney of the Daily Mail.

Dear Bel,

I don’t think I can say I have a problem, more a niggling worry that I’m sure is experienced by lots of people.

I’m in my 60s and have no family, friends or job. I just have my husband who is in his 70s. I suppose he is likely to die before me (not to be morbid, just realistic) and then I will be totally alone. This I will have to deal with like anyone else, but I’m concerned about what will happen when I die. Obviously I can leave a will so that any money and assets will be distributed, but what will happen to all the things that mean something to me, but have no monetary value?

For example — photographs, ornaments, all the little things one collects over a lifetime. With no family to leave things to, I hate the idea of strangers pawing through my things and then throwing them away. Realistically I know this is what will happen but I find it worries me. I don’t know why it should — after all, I won’t be there to see it. Am I being silly and shallow to be bothered about this, particularly when other people have terrible problems and tragic lives?

I don’t want to talk to my husband about this as I think he may get upset if he thinks I am upset.

Do you have any advice?

EVA

I know that the concerns this lady is expressing here are shared by many in the same or a similar situation. This is exactly the kind of scenario that Lovingly Managed was set up to help with. What a shame this lady doesn’t know about us. If she did, she could put in place an End of Life plan and contract us to carry out her instructions. If she did this, she would have the comfort of knowing that it wouldn’t be complete strangers ‘pawing’ through her things but people that she had met face-to-face and that the instructions she had left for those people, contained in her End of Life plan, would be respected to the letter.

Oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood

Recently, Lovingly Managed was granted associate membership of SAIF (Society of Allied Independent Funeral Directors) and we were asked to submit around 400 words to be included in SAIF Insight. We duly obliged and thought no more about it. Here it is.

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Lovingly Managed is a company offering a wide range of services that cover the spectrum of death and dying from end to end. Within this, the company provides a number of services relating to funeral organisation. These services are ones which are not undertaken by the funeral director so, by taking them on, Lovingly Managed aims to relieve the bereaved of still more of the administrative burden associated with organising a funeral. These tasks include things such as ringing or writing to relatives and friends of the deceased to inform them of the venue, time and date of the funeral; sourcing a venue, if required, and organising the catering for any post-funeral hospitality; sending out thank yous/acknowledgements for the receipt of flowers and donations on behalf of the family. Lovingly Managed will also send out first anniversary announcements or respond to first anniversary acknowledgements, organise an anniversary memorial service if this is required or work with the family to create an on-line memorial.

Lovingly Managed welcomes the opportunity to work in partnership with the independent funeral sector, providing our services on an outsourced basis so that independent funeral directors can enhance their service offering without increasing the workload for their existing staff or incurring higher staffing overheads and, as a result, be in a position to deliver added value to their clients and so gain a competitive edge within their local market.

While we’ve given a lot of thought to the kind of help a family may want in relation to a funeral, in addition to what is provided by their funeral director, and to what a funeral director would feel were services that naturally complement his/her own and so would be happy offering them to clients, we are always willing to consider any request for something we may not have thought of, either from the client or the funeral director.

Lovingly Managed also operates a referral scheme for funeral directors in relation to the drafting of Wills, Powers of Attorney, Advance Directives and the company’s own End of Life plans. Our End of Life plan allows people to document specific and detailed instructions regarding their end of life and the finalization of their estate that are not contained in a will or other legal document. They can prove immensely useful for people who are on their own and are worried about who will take care of things and they can also help to eliminate the potential for disputes between bereaved family members. They are a natural partner to pre-paid funeral plans. Contact us for more information on our referral scheme.

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Then we received the following email:

“I have seen your advertisement in this months SAIFINSIGHT publication that we receive as Funeral Directors and also reading your website I want to express my opinion. As a PROFESSIONAL funeral director of some 17 years dealing with hundreds of families I am so angry at what you say you can deliver especially what you think funeral directors do not do! You mention funeral co-ordination and organisation! and mentioning what we as funeral directors do not offer or organise. Can I tell you as a private family business what we provide families is second to none every detail is covered every option given, I wouldn’t dare hand that over to someone else to do for me. Your information is very misleading to say the least. I am going to go through your website with a fine tooth com be so to speak, and give my findings to the relevant funeral organisations. I am also going to express what I find to other funeral directors. SAIF also whom you advertised with need to look at what they print, again I am going to speak with them direct. I am so angry, I have looked after some very high profile funerals one in particular last year that was covered by all media, the amount of organisation, preparation and co-ordination that goes into all the funerals I look after not just that particular funeral, I treat as a privilege to able to organise. I trust you are all professionals yourself which I respect, but what you offer is a jumble of different things. I am also looking at your bronze silver etc etc plans, again its very interesting to say the least.”

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Ooops, we do seem to have upset someone. Never were the words ‘I’m just a soul whose intentions are good, oh Lord, please don’t let me be misunderstood’ so appropriate.

Looking at the wording of what we’d written to see what could possibly have caused so much offence the only thing we could think of was that we should have qualified the sentence “These services are ones which are not undertaken by the funeral director so, by taking them on, Lovingly Managed aims to relieve the bereaved of still more of the administrative burden associated with organising a funeral” by adding the words, ‘as a general rule’ after the word ‘not’ i.e. ‘These services are ones which are not, as a general rule, undertaken by the funeral director so, …………’.  Or maybe the misunderstanding arose because by stressing the word not he thought we were somehow being critical of the service FDs provide when, in fact, our intention was to stress that our services don’t impinge on those provided by the FD but merely complement them.

When we set up Lovingly Managed, we researched where the funeral director’s service ends, AS A GENERAL RULE, and looked at where we could pick up any slack and offer additional services that would relieve the bereaved of more of the administrative burden that arises  in the immediate aftermath of a death.  In addition to that, we have all arranged funerals of close family members so know from personal experience what additional help we might have wanted which wasn’t part of our funeral directors’ service portfolios. This is in no way meant as a criticism of the service offered by funeral directors, just a statement of fact. Every business has to decide the scope of their service, what they will do, what they won’t, where their service ends or you could go on and on.

Obviously, from what our detractor has written, he won’t be interested in working with us because he offers all these services himself. Good for him. No one is forcing him to work with us; no one is forcing anyone to work with us. We have a service which we believe could be of benefit to funeral directors, not necessarily all of them, and their clients and it’s there if they want to avail themselves of it. If not, so be it. And, as it was an internal industry magazine, it’s obvious that it was not our intention to denigrate the service provided by funeral directors with the general public. But what I find perplexing is why he should take such offence at our service to the point that the tone of his email becomes vaguely threatening. He is going to ‘go through our web site with a fine tooth comb and write to give his findings to the relevant funeral organisations and he is going to express what he finds to other funeral directors’. I’m not sure what he thinks he’s going to find but he seems pretty determined to be as down on us as he can be as well as to actively undermine us to others and all this without ever having spoken to us.

Contrary to this attitude, Denise and Sharon recently attended SAIF’s Welsh Regional Meeting and Christmas Dinner and met several funeral directors who felt our business concept had merit and were interested in exploring how we might potentially work with them so we are encouraged that there is acceptance within the independent FD sector; hopefully the suspicious will be a small minority.

Denise, Sharon and I started this business because we believe we offer a valuable service that bereaved people will find helpful at a particularly difficult time in their lives, a view which is regularly reinforced when we speak to members of the public. We are therefore saddened that this particular individual seems to wish to attack our credibility and read the worst into what are genuinely good intentions.

PS: Next day …….

Oh, and then we received this one from someone who chose to contact us totally anonymously from one of those web sites where you can set up a bogus email address. I wonder why?!  May I just point out that the spelling mistakes are those of the author, so have a read and decide who is the ‘unprofessional’ one between us.

From: daffyduck@*************.com [mailto:daffyduck@**************.com]
Sent: 12 December 2011 14:27
To: info@lovinglymanaged.com
Subject: Lovingly Managed – Feedback
Name: Walt disney
Email: daffyduck@**************.com

Feedback: what a mickey mouse outfit you are, totally unprofessional chancers wanting to make money by offering deflunct services. It amazes us how you get away with what you offer and the price.. property seraches! room clearance! end of life planning! help with moving! escort service! why not add walt disney production!…

It’s just like insurance

Unless you are incredibly tidy and organised most households have a place, which nine times out of 10 is a drawer in the kitchen, that accommodates all the ‘stuff’ that no one’s quite sure what to do with. An old mobile, used birthday cake candles and some odd cake decorations, a variety of sticking tapes, a few pens, emery boards, stamp books, takeaway menus, pieces of wrapping paper and gift wrap ribbon that have been saved to be re-used, a couple of small note pads, a few random batteries, old phone chargers, a broken watch, an ancient lipstick and a pair of old sunglasses, to be used in the case of emergencies, are just some of the items that one might find in this black hole.

It’s usually the last resort when you find yourself holding something that you have no idea what to do with, or when your child asks ‘What shall I do with this?’ and you haven’t got time to think – you just stick it in the drawer and then forget about it. When you go into the drawer looking for something, then you might see an item and think ‘I really must deal with that’, such as arranging to send your old mobiles and chargers off to a recycling scheme, but then the drawer gets closed and it’s forgotten about until the next time.

Over time, the contents in the drawer build up until it reaches a point where you don’t want to open it in case you can’t close it again. That’s the time when you have to deal with all the stuff and have a grand clear out and afterwards, you feel so much better even though you know that all you’ve really done is pave the way for the whole cycle to start again!

We tend to treat certain life decisions in the same way as this eclectic collection of items. We don’t know what to do about them, or don’t want to face them, so we stash them in our mind’s equivalent of the kitchen drawer.  For  most people, death and dying fall into this category which is why 70% of the UK’s adult population fail to make a will. It’s something people are always going to think about later.

However, as we all know, in reality death happens to us all and can happen at any time and at any age. Every day we carelessly wave off our nearest and dearest, confidently assuming that we will see them later but every single day, for a few people, that’s the last time they ever see their loved one alive.

Occasionally you get people who, rather than just not wanting to think about it, believe that by making arrangements for their deaths they will somehow attract a disaster down on themselves. But does the fact that you take out buildings’ insurance mean your house is going to burn down? No; of course not. People take out insurance policies all the time for all sorts of things that hardly ever happen. Sorting out the relevant paperwork for death and dying is exactly the same. The chances are that it’s not likely to be needed for a long time, some of it maybe never, but it takes a weight off the mind knowing that the relevant documents are in place.

So what documents should you get in place in order to achieve peace of mind for yourself and save your family a great deal of hassle should the unthinkable happen?

A will – if you thought you were in the minority then, as was mentioned earlier, think again. You are just one of 70% of UK adults who don’t make a will. Some people, for whatever reason, just won’t face up to their own mortality; others think that they don’t need to make one in what often proves to be the mistaken belief that what they want to happen will happen, even if they die intestate. For most people though, it’s just something they never get round to. But writing a will is an absolute necessity once you have something to leave if you want to be sure that your assets go to who you want them to go to. Time and again, people make incorrect assumptions about what will happen if they die intestate, especially in relation to their wishes and what becomes of their estate as it applies to their children and their partner, particularly if they are not married to their partner or their legal spouse is not the biological or legal parent of their children. What’s the saying? To ASSUME is to make an ASS of U and ME. So just don’t take the chance. Get proper advice on making your will, which can be done so inexpensively these days that not doing so really is a false economy.

Powers of Attorney – A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) is a legal document that allows you to appoint someone that you trust to make decisions on your behalf when you no longer wish to or when you lack the mental capacity to do so. There are two types of LPA – one that relates to health and welfare matters and the other which relates to financial matters. Sometimes people worry about taking out an LPA because they see it as giving away control over their lives and are worried about the fact that the power it invests in the person they appoint as an attorney may be too wide ranging and open to abuse. In reality, there are lots of safeguards that are built-in to the process of drafting an LPA and that also exist within the LPA itself which make it extremely difficult for an LPA to be misused. If you’re in business as a sole-trader you should make an LPA that appoints someone you trust to run your business in your absence or, if you own a business with others, you would be well advised to appoint at least one of your business partners as one of your attorneys so that they can continue to run the business effectively without you if you become incapacitated.

It’s also worth remembering that LPAs can’t be used until they are registered with the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG), a process that takes around three months during which time no one will be able to do anything with your assets. People worry about registering an LPA thinking that, once they’ve done so, their attorneys can start making decisions for them. This is not the case because, as mentioned earlier, there are safeguards built-in to the process of drafting an LPA that make it virtually impossible for your attorneys to take control of your affairs before you are deemed to have lost capacity. In order to avoid any problems that may be caused by a time lag between loss of capacity and the LPA becoming valid, it makes sense to register them right away so that they are there, ready and waiting to be activated at short notice should the need arise.

Advance Directive/Decision or Living Will – sometimes people are rendered incapable of making and/or communicating their own decisions (known as a ‘lack of capacity’) usually as a result of a serious brain or physical injury or at the tail end of a degenerative disease. To plan for this eventuality, people have the option to draft an Advance Directive/Decision giving their instructions on their general care and specifying the kind of medical interventions and treatments they don’t want if they should ever be in this position. But remember, within the scope of an Advance Decision you can’t authorize someone else to make decisions for you. For that you must have a Health and Welfare LPA in place.

End of Life plans – unlike the other documents mentioned, End of Life plans are not legally binding. However, what they offer is an opportunity for people to set out detailed instructions with regard to their end of life and the finalization of their estate that are not catered for in a will or other legal document. They can prove immensely useful if you are the last man standing, so to speak, and are worried about what will happen to you. They can also help to eliminate the potential for disputes between bereaved family members if you have said in advance what you want to happen leaving no one in any doubt as to your wishes. End of Life plans vary in their scope but cover such elements as general care (as opposed to medical care) in the later stages of your life, all the instructions regarding any funeral service and wake and then go on to provide information pertinent to your estate and life that will make the process of probate much simpler and, as a result, quicker and less costly.

Funeral plans – more and more people are opting to protect their loved ones from the burden of rising funeral costs, which in recent years have been going up ahead of the rate of inflation as a result of increased disbursement costs such as burial and cremation fees, by purchasing pre-paid funeral plans. There are a wide variety of these plans on the market catering for a range of needs and budgets. You decide what type of funeral you want and pay for it now, either in a lump sum or by instalments over a period of months or years. This money is then invested so that your initial capital outlay grows to provide enough funds to cover the cost of your funeral in the future.

The thought of death is an uncomfortable one for most people but it’s one that needs to be faced and sooner rather than later. And, like clearing out that kitchen drawer, once you’ve got all the paperwork sorted it really does take a weight off the mind.

It really could happen to you

No one could fail to be moved by the tragic deaths of the young parents and the paternal grandfather of baby Logan, six months old at the time of the car crash earlier this year which happened on the M4 motorway in South Wales which killed his parents and grandfather when the family was on the final leg of its journey home after a holiday in Morocco. Logan has been made an orphan while his paternal grandmother has lost her husband, son and, in all but legal status, daughter-in-law. I wonder if any of them had Wills. The grandfather may have, but he could just as easily be one of the 70 per cent of the UK population who haven’t made a Will and, if this is the case, then it’s an additional aggravation for his distraught widow at a time when she could, frankly, do without it, especially as a Will might have ensured a better position for her.

My bet is that the young couple didn’t. I mean, who expects to die in their early 20s? But tragedies do happen, so the minute you have something to leave, even if that ‘something’ is a child, then it’s absolutely vital to make a Will to save your grieving family from the additional stress and worry regarding custody of your child/ren. “Well my mum/sister/brother will have him/her; why do I need a Will?” I can hear you all asking. While my intention is not to frighten you – maybe just give you serious pause for thought – it’s important that you realize that there is absolutely no guarantee that your child will go to the person you thought he/she would go to if you haven’t specified a guardian for that child or children in a Will.

When a child is orphaned, and there is no legally appointed guardian (which is what a Will ensures), the child becomes the responsibility of the local Social Services.  They have the final decision as to who will raise the child. Your family can say until they’re blue in the face that you would have wanted your child to go to X; if Social Services don’t think that X can provide a good enough home environment then X won’t get your child. They may be able to take them in the short-term but, in order to keep them on a permanent basis until they reach 18, X will have to submit to a stringent assessment that can take several months, much like when people apply to become foster parents, resulting in an extended period of uncertainty over whether or not “relative carer” status will be granted to X. During this time, your child may or may not be permitted to live with X and, if Social Services don’t feel that anyone within the family is suitable as a guardian, your child can be put into care, fostered or even adopted.

Even when “relative carer” status is given, Social Services have the power to rescind this at any time if they feel things are not working out to their satisfaction and X will always be subject to regular and ongoing assessments.

We read or hear about people dying in accidents every day, and there are lots more that we never hear about, so it becomes commonplace.  It takes a story with a significant ‘tragedy’ angle for it to achieve headline status that thrusts it into the public consciousness.  But will people think ‘that could be me; I’d better get my Will sorted’? Well, maybe a few. I know one couple who did write Wills as a direct result of this accident. But for most people, even if it does prompt them to think about the fact that they don’t have Wills, it’ll be a fleeting thought that fades with time and then disappears until the next major tragedy occurs. After all, things like that only happen to other people – don’t they?  Well sorry but no – the fact is, it really could happen to you.

So what’s your number and do your loved ones know it?

I watched Channel 4′s ‘24 Hours in A&E’ recently. I didn’t catch it all but it featured an 85 year old man who had apparently suffered three heart attacks. Now I’m not sure what the time lapse was between each heart attack – years, months, days, minutes – but the third one was the one that killed him.

He spent his last minutes on this earth being rushed into A&E, having tubes inserted into him, having doctors trying desperately to get his heart going again. Did he want this? Who knows? He was 85. He’d had a long life. Did he want more time or was he accepting of the fact that, at 85, he’d reached the end of his time on this earth?

One thing, the doctor who tried so hard to save him knows that this isn’t what he wants for himself. He felt that this was no way to die and I’m with him on this, but without any instructions to the contrary the doctor was duty bound to try everything within reason to save this man’s life, no matter how invasive, aggressive and ultimately futile.

Would I want that for myself? Probably not; not at 85. Now at 75, if I was unfortunate enough to suffer a heart attack or a stroke or something equally as serious, assuming I’ve been relatively fit and healthy up to that point and the doctors believe that I have a good chance of resuming a reasonable quality of life for another five, 10 or even 15 years, then I probably would. If, however, they feel they can get me going again merely to ‘exist’ then, frankly, at 75, 65, even 55, I’ll pass. There comes a time when we have to accept that we’re not going to be able to cheat death forever; it’s going to catch up with all of us in the end and we must think about this and decide what we’re prepared to settle for if we ever find ourselves in this situation. Now your number and your threshold for an acceptable quality of life will be different from mine but the point I’m making is that if no one knows your number or the quality of life you’re prepared to accept, you could find yourself subjected to the same life saving procedures experienced by our doomed 85 year old, even though you had reached the point where you had made peace with the inevitability of your own death and would not have wanted this kind of intervention.

So, how do we avoid this? By making an Advance Directive (commonly known as a Living Will) and giving copies to your family, your doctor, your local hospital, your solicitor – anyone who might need to know your wishes at such a time. Doing this means that, even if you’re in a coma, people are left in no doubt as to what you would have wanted had you been in a position to communicate your needs and will hopefully inform any decisions being made regarding your treatment. It will also relieve your family of the burden of having to make what could be a truly untenable decision that even they may not be able to agree on.

You can still do your best for them, even at the end

We all worry about our children when they’re small, and as they’re growing up, and do all we can to make their lives safe and happy. For most of us though, by the time they are grown up, we can relax a bit knowing that, in the main, they’re finally able to take care of themselves, although it doesn’t necessarily stop us from worrying. When the time comes for us to shake off our mortal coils, our offspring are usually middle-aged with young adult children of their own.

Sadly, some parents never get to this point. Depending on the degree to which their particular condition impacts on their ability to live independent lives, special needs children may very well rely on their parents, to a greater or lesser extent, for the whole of their parents’ lives. An almost universal worry of parents of special needs children is what will happen to them after they, the parents, are no longer around. There may be other children in the picture but even then parents can feel guilty about leaving them with this additional responsibility. Also, as no one can predict the future, there are no guarantees that brothers or sisters will, in fact, outlive their special needs sibling.

Of course, as people with special needs age and their parents die, the state could more than likely take ultimate responsibility for their care and, if required, for their burial and cremation when they pass on. We’re not criticising what the state provides as we’re sure that, in the absence of parents or other family members, the social workers and carers who are looking after these adults at the time of their death do their absolute best to give them a dignified funeral. But wouldn’t it bring greater peace of mind to know exactly what kind of send off your child was going to receive?

Parents can plan NOW for the passing of their special needs child, regardless of their current age, specifying the details of any funeral service, selecting readings, music, flowers, type of coffin and burial, location of final resting place and write a personal tribute to their child which could then be incorporated into a eulogy at the time of their passing. As it’s unlikely that a special needs adult will ever be in a position to plan their own funeral, it makes perfect sense for parents to make these decisions rather than professional carers, no matter how well they have come to know the child as an adult and how well meaning they are.

Lovingly Managed offers a service by which we take instructions from parents regarding the funeral of a special needs child which we can ensure are carried out at the time of their passing. Even though we personally may have passed on ourselves, our business will go on and of course copies of the plan can be provided to family, friends, carers or local authorities for future use and knowledge.

Who needs it?

Last September an elderly woman died. In the immediate aftermath of her death, no one in her family got round to letting her credit card provider, MBNA, know that she had passed on. Although she had a zero balance, unfortunately her annual service charge became due shortly after her death and this was charged to her card. Because this wasn’t settled, late fees and interest were also added in October and November. By the time this was picked up by her grandson, she had a balance of £60 on her card.

The following interchange that took place between her grandson and the MBNA credit card call centre was reported recently in the Newcastle Evening Chronicle.

Grandson: ‘I am calling to tell you that she died in September.’
MBNA: ‘The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.’
Grandson: ‘Maybe, you should turn it over to collections.’
MBNA: ‘Since it is two months past due, it already has been.’
Grandson: So, what will they do when they find out she is dead?’
MBNA: ‘Either report her account to the frauds division or report her to the credit bureau, maybe both!’
Grandson: ‘Do you think God will be mad at her?’
MBNA: ‘Excuse me?’
Grandson: ‘Did you just get what I was telling you ? The part about her being dead?’
MBNA: ‘Sir, you’ll have to speak to my supervisor.’

Supervisor gets on the phone:

Grandson: ‘I’m calling to tell you she died in September.’
MBNA: ‘The account was never closed and the late fees and charges still apply.’
Grandson: ‘You mean you want to collect from her estate?’
MBNA: (Stammer) ‘Are you her lawyer?’
Grandson: ‘No, I’m her grandson’ (Lawyer info given)
MBNA: ‘Could you fax us a certificate of death?’
Grandson: ‘Sure.’ (fax number is given)

After MBNA gets the fax:

MBNA: ‘Our system just isn’t set up for death. I don’t know what more I can do to help.’
Grandson: ‘Well, if you figure it out, great! If not, you could just keep billing her. I don’t think she will care.’
MBNA: ‘Well, the late fees and charges do still apply.’
Grandson: ‘Would you like her new billing address?’
MBNA: ‘That might help.’
Grandson: ‘ Heaton Cemetery , Heaton Road , Newcastle upon Tyne Plot 1049.’
MBNA: ‘Sir, that’s a cemetery!’
Grandson: ‘Well, what the f*** do you do with dead people on your planet?’

Apparently, MBNA were not available for comment when a reporter from the Newcastle Evening Chronicle rang.

The reaction of most people reading this will be to laugh at the farcical standard of the customer service provided by a huge organisation that, in the 21st century, really should have the appropriate processes in place to handle this situation. I mean, surely they realise, sometimes their customers WILL DIE. Fortunately in this case, the caller was the switched on and emotionally resilient grandson. But how different might it have been had it been an emotionally vulnerable elderly widow who’d just lost her husband having that conversation with some badly briefed and poorly trained call centre agent?

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident. Many large corporations continue to demonstrate an unbelievably insensitive attitude to people calling to report someone’s death which, depending on the closeness of the relationship between the deceased and the caller, can serve to increase levels of distress. Corporations though, who rarely seem to want to accept responsibility for the failings in their own internal processes, will no doubt prefer to pass the buck, saying that they should have been notified earlier and then the situation would never have arisen. But that is not real life. Death can be messy and disorganised. Delays can occur when a family is left with a large amount of paperwork and other practical tasks to sort out when someone’s died, which they probably have to fit around their own already busy lives and, unsurprisingly, calling a credit card company may not be top of their list of priorities.

Of course, it is just this sort of situation that Lovingly Managed can help people avoid, either because the deceased person had the foresight to complete one of our End of Life plans so the required information is easily accessible, making the administrative burden so much easier to manage for those left behind, or because the grieving husband, wife or family of the bereaved can hand over all this kind of liaison to us to sort out on their behalf. As a third party with no emotional connection to the deceased we can deal with these kinds of interactions professionally and dispassionately and with no risk of being upset by the quality of service we receive, whatever that may be.

www.lovinglymanaged.com

Hello world!

Well, here at last in the world of blogging.  Dipping the toe into the water before the dive!