MY MUM PLANNED HER OWN FUNERAL TODAY

My mother shocked me. “I suppose I should tell you what I did today,” she said casually preparing morning tea from her retirement home in, Mandurah, Western Australia.

“Oh yeah,” I said, fully expecting to hear something mundane. “I just planned my own funeral today,” she said. I was caught by complete surprise as this was something we had never discussed before!

Davina, my mother, is 80, and healthy aside from minor ailments, but she thought, at her age, it was a sensible thing to do.

“It was a recent conversation about death and dying with friends that got me thinking initially,” she said. “With the cost of funerals being so expensive, I needed to act now, before it was too late,” she says.

“My adult children have enough financial burdens to worry about, without worrying about how to plan for my funeral. So, I decided to record my funeral wishes with eziFunerals, a new funeral site that guides you through the funeral planning process and helps you understand your funeral rights. Planning my funeral through eziFunerals was simple and can also save my family thousands of dollars when the time comes,” she says.

But Davina also had another reason for making creating her funeral plan. “I now have peace of mind knowing that if I were in hospital, very ill and unlikely to get better, all this stuff is done. I wouldn’t have to struggle to make my wishes known from a hospital bed,” she said.

Peter Erceg, Founder of a new online funeral platform - eziFunerals, said, ‘Planning your own funeral is an opportunity to think, not only about how you would like things done, but also to consider how best to spend your money. It can make a difficult time much easier for family and friends at a time of intense grief. There is a huge sense of relief in knowing that a loved one’s wishes are being carried out to the letter, as they wanted. Doing so removes not only the financial burden from remaining family, but also the emotional burden of wondering what Mum or Dad would have liked,” Erceg says.

Davina has a detailed document, outlining not only the practical, but also the small things that are personally important to her, such as the readings and music she would like at her funeral mass. And although I know my own mother well, I would have definitely made a big mistake with the funeral arrangements.

My conversation with my mother that morning, about her death and funeral arrangements, was surreal. At first I thought it was an irrational thing for her to do, but it was the opposite.

Personally, I am grateful to know that when the day arrives, my brothers and I will know exactly what is to be done, before we contact a funeral director. We also have the comfort of knowing that Mum’s send-off will be exactly as she wanted it to be.

About eziFunerals

eziFunerals supports individuals and families cope with end of life decisions, death and funerals. We are an independent, Australian-owned and operated company, and are not a subsidiary of any other corporation. We are not part of any other funeral company. Founded by consumers frustrated by how difficult it was to get independent information, eziFunerals supports consumers plan a funeral, compare prices and select the right funeral director anywhere, anytime.