What to do when someone dies: the first few days

The hours after someone dies are strange. There is a great deal to do and almost none of it is what you feel like doing. It helps to know that the list is shorter than it feels, and that most of it can wait longer than you think.

In the first hours

If they died at home and it was expected, ring the doctor or hospice nurse — not an ambulance. Somebody has to formally verify the death before anything else can happen. If it was unexpected, ring emergency services.

If they died in hospital or a care home, the staff will have started this already. They will tell you what they need from you, and it is usually less than you expect.

There is no rush to move them. Sitting with someone after they have died is allowed, and many people are glad afterwards that they did.

In the first day or two

• Choose a funeral director. They will collect your person and, from that point, carry most of the administrative weight. Ring two or three if you have the energy; prices vary more than people realise.
• Find the will, if there is one, and any funeral wishes. People often leave instructions somewhere unhelpful — a drawer, a folder marked something else.
• Tell the people who must be told. A short list: immediate family, their closest friends, their employer. Ask two of them to tell everybody else. You do not have to make every call yourself, and you should not.

Within the first week

The death has to be registered — the timeframe and office vary by country, and your funeral director will know exactly where and by when. Take more copies of the death certificate than you think you need; every bank, insurer and government office wants its own, and getting more later is slow.

Then, gradually: the bank, any pension, the landlord or mortgage, insurers, utilities. This part takes months, not days. It is normal for it to take months.

What can wait

Almost everything else. Clearing the house can wait. Thank-you notes can wait. Deciding what to do with their things can wait a year, and often should.

The part nobody prepares you for

You will be asked to make decisions about coffins and flowers and wording while you are least able to make decisions. It is fine to say "I do not know" and ask someone else to choose. It is fine for the service to be small. There is no version of this you can get wrong by doing less.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it, people will want somewhere to send their condolences and their photographs. A memorial page gives them one — their story (the free obituary writer helps with that part), the photographs, and space for the people who knew them to write something down while it is fresh. It costs nothing to the people who visit, and it does not need to be finished today.