Inremember

Here's the honest question every family eventually asks, even if they never say it out loud: how do you justify the cost of death, after a death?

There's no right answer. Some families are working through nursing home bills, estate costs, a house that needs to sell — the costs and the costs and the costs that come with losing someone. And now, on top of all of it, a memorial.

Add siblings into the mix — two, three, four people who loved the same person differently and grieve differently — and you get four different answers to "how much should we spend." That's not dysfunction. That's just what grief and money do to a family at the exact same time.

I've come to believe the right answer is about capacity — what a family can actually carry right now, financially and emotionally, on top of everything else.

My job isn't to convince a family to spend more than that. My job is to listen closely enough to understand what they're actually carrying, and to help them build something honest within it — whether that's a full production or the basics done right.

Not every family is my client. And that's okay. But if you're standing in this moment — trying to figure out how to tell someone's story, while everything else about death is expensive and complicated — I'd be honored to listen. Trust me, I'm right there. ~ Eric

That's the job. That's why I do it.