Losing a parent can feel like the foundations of your world are shifting. Everything that once felt stable is now tilted and unfamiliar. You’re trying to figure out how to deal with the loss of a parent—and then someone hands you a clipboard: “Can you sign here?” they ask. “We need you to make some very important decisions about the estate.”
It’s disorienting. Your heartache is still fresh, yet the paperwork can’t wait. It feels like walking out of a funeral into a boardroom—it’s jarring and deeply unfair.
This guide is to help you through that moment. When grief and responsibility collide, you need simple and practical steps. You need to know what can wait and what cannot.
Start with what’s immediate and essential
Immediately after the death, here are steps to take.
1. Get a legal pronouncement of death. In most states, a licensed physician or coroner can pronounce death. If your loved one died while in hospice care, contact the hospice care nurse. If they died while not in medical or hospice care, call 911.
2. Contact your local funeral home, mortuary, or crematorium to arrange for the transport of the body—once you have the legal pronouncement of death. The funeral home will likely contact you shortly after to plan a time for a consultation to discuss funeral arrangements.
While you wait for the funeral home to contact you, you can continue with these next steps:
3. Secure your parent’s home and property (if your other parent is not living or residing in the home). Lock all doors and windows, remove any spare keys from outside, and ensure that valuables are safe.
4. Gather information that the funeral home will need. They’ll need your parent’s:
- full legal name
- date and place of birth
- Social Security number
- marital status at time of death
- last known address
- spouse’s full name
- occupation (type of work and industry)
- education level
- U.S. military service status
- mother’s and father’s full name
- will or living trust documents (if there is one)
- Social Security card or number
- military discharge papers (if applicable)
- life insurance policies
- photo ID
- any funeral prearrangement documents (if your parent has made these)
Eventually, it will be helpful to have the following documents:
- birth and marriage certificates
- bank and investment statements
- deeds and property titles
- tax returns
- information for existing bills
6. Contact key people and services. You will want to notify close family and friends as soon as you can. It will also be helpful to reach out to a trusted clergy member or chaplain. If applicable, you will want to contact your parent’s place of employment as well.
Once you meet with the funeral home, they will ask about getting death certificates.
7. Get multiple copies of the death certificate. Life insurance companies, banks, the Social Security Administration, firms that manage investment and retirement accounts, and a probate court are a few of the places that will require an original copy of a death certificate to settle affairs.
After the funeral, you will still have some work to do to settle the estate.
Settle the estate and fulfill their wishes
Once the immediate decisions have been made, the longer journey of settling your parent’s affairs begins. This will be easier if they left a will. But either way, it can still be both special and overwhelming. You aren’t just handling paperwork, you’re carrying out their final wishes, honoring their legacy, and making sure what they left behind is handled with care. But it can be difficult to navigate all of this while you are still grieving the loss of a parent. For this reason, it is typically wise, whenever possible, to avoid making any big decisions immediately following their death. Here are a few tips that can help.
1. Take inventory of personal assets. If your loved one had a trusted accountant, work with this person. If not, consider retaining one. Be sure that the accountant is familiar with estate settlements and can guide you through the process. If it is a smaller estate, you’ll need to look through previous tax returns, mail, email, bank accounts, deeds, titles, etc., to get a grasp of the remaining assets.
2. Make sure bills are paid. Before distributing any assets to beneficiaries, your parent’s debts must be paid. Bills from hospitals, credit card companies, utility companies, and other service providers might need to be paid. In addition, a final tax return will have to be filed on behalf of your parent.
3. After all the creditors are paid, distribute the remaining assets to the beneficiaries as laid out in the will. If there is no will, you will need to contact the probate court in the county where your parent lived. The court will appoint someone as the administrator of the estate. If that is you, and you have siblings, it is wise to keep them in the loop about what is going on with the estate. If that is not you, but a sibling, try to be patient. Settling an estate can take time, and it depends on many factors.
Because these duties are sensitive, Chuck Bentley of Crown Financial Ministries says:
If you’re in charge of helping the other family members with the disbursements, I think you have to see yourself with a calling to be above reproach. You want to have absolute integrity in the way you deal with it, which usually requires transparency, full disclosure, and no hidden agenda.
4. Sort through your loved one’s belongings. After you’ve managed debts and distributed assets, you will want to sort your parent’s belongings with care. Allow time for emotional processing. It is a good idea to go through things with other people. This can be a good time of bonding with siblings or other family members. But be sure to make room for memories as well as grief as you go. Many have found it helpful to sort personal belongings into three categories: keep, donate/sell, not sure yet. It’s okay if it takes time to process this. This idea is further described in the book Is My Grief Normal? 51 Questions People Are Asking About Loss by GriefShare.
5. Consider ways you can honor your parent’s memory. You’ll want to find ways to honor your parent’s legacy—both publicly and privately. This may include fulfilling personal requests they made that weren’t part of the formal legal process. Whether it’s passing along a meaningful item to a loved one or carrying out a small but significant wish, these acts can help preserve their memory in a deeply personal way. You can also honor them by doing things that you’d like to remember them by. Many choose to do this through memorials, scrapbooks, or donations to causes that were important to them. You can also carry forward something that mattered to them. This can be living out their values, passing on their wisdom, or continuing something they started.
If you’re looking for additional suggestions on how to create a legacy project that honors your loved one and blesses other people—plus hear other ways to preserve memories and carry on lessons learned—consider attending a GriefShare support group. This topic is covered in one of the weekly sessions.
Take care of yourself along the way
Doing paperwork can be exhausting on its own. It’s even more taxing when you are grieving while doing it. Rest when you need to. It’s also a good idea not to carry this burden alone. It’s okay to seek help from siblings, friends, pastors, or professionals. While some of these chores are time-sensitive, many aren’t. Give yourself time to process.
You may be checking tasks off a long list, but keep in mind that grief doesn’t follow a checklist. In the quiet moments, the loss can still feel overwhelming. If that’s where you find yourself, GriefShare (a 13-week video-based support group) is a safe place to talk, to listen, and to heal. You don’t have to figure out grief—or life after loss—on your own. God sees you, and so do others who’ve walked this same road.
For more help, you can go to griefshare.org/freeaccount to find other articles and resources like “Managing an Inheritance,” a financial affairs checklist, a budget worksheet, and more.
