The Gift of Death Cleaning

Before cremation services offered in Phoenix, AZ, you should consider preparing for your death by giving those you leave behind the gift of death cleaning.

Stop for a moment and project yourself into the future after you die. Your family shows up your home to begin the process of taking care of the final details that need to be attended to after your death.

You and your spouse may have made this home your final landing spot. Your children may have grown up in this home before they left to live their own lives and have their own families. This may have been the gathering place for holidays and weddings and vacations.

You lived there a long time, so you accumulated a lot of stuff. Some of the things have monetary value, have sentimental value, or are heirlooms that you want to pass down to your family. However, the reality is that there are probably a lot of things that nobody wants and that should have been given away or thrown away before you died.

You’ve left your grieving family with the burdensome task of determining they should keep and what they should get rid of. Then they have to decide how to get rid of what goes. This will be difficult work for them that will be accompanied by dilemmas, drama, and unnecessary stress as they declutter your home.

Now come back to right now while you are still living. Is this something you want your family to go through after you die? If not, and for most people, it isn’t, then now is the time for you to start doing something about it.

Resist the urge to go tearing through your home in a frenzy and throwing or giving everything away. Instead, make an organized plan for smartly decluttering your home that includes the things in your home that you or your family might want to or should keep.

If you have family members close by, enlist their help in going from room to room to make an inventory and to decide what should be and shouldn’t be kept. If none of your immediate family lives close enough to help with this project, then enlist the help of a close friend.

There may things you don’t want to keep, but one or more of your family members might want them. Asking your family about these things is a great way to begin talking with them about your own end-of-life planning. Let your family know what you’re doing and give them the opportunity to get those things that you don’t want, but that they may want.

However, give them a reasonable, but firm, time limit to get the things they want, and let them know that if they haven’t gotten them by then, that you will give or throw these things away.

If you have things that you have already decided to you want certain family members to have, give them to them now. This will lessen the burden on the executor of your will, in terms of distributing inheritance items, after you die. It can also eliminate quite a bit of potential conflict among your family over your stuff.

After this, determine what you want to get rid of. Go room to room and gather together what you want to throw away and what you want to give away (many charities will pick all these items up, so you don’t need to take them anywhere).

If you have to take items somewhere else to donate them or throw them away, aim for one garbage bag full each week to donate and one garbage bag full to throw away. In 52 weeks, you will have given or thrown away 104 bags of clutter and your home will be completely decluttered.

For information about cremation services offered in Phoenix, AZ, including grief resources, our caring and knowledgeable staff at Simply Cremations & Funeral Arrangements is here to assist you.