Grief & After
Losing a partner after a long life together
Bereavement in later life involves losing not only a person but a way of living, and the practical consequences are frequently as destabilising as the grief.
Before Last Wish — The conversations worth having early
Grief & After
When you are the last one left
Outliving your generation is a particular kind of loss, rarely discussed, and it brings practical problems alongside the grief.
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Grief & After
Continuing bonds: what people do with the relationship afterwards
The idea that grief ends with letting go has been substantially revised, and what most people actually do is maintain a relationship in an altered form.
Funeral Planning
The first twenty-four hours
What actually has to happen immediately after a death is a short list, and knowing it prevents decisions being made under pressure that cost money and cause regret.
Family Conversations
The letter you leave behind
Of everything people leave, the thing most consistently valued is a letter, and it is the thing most consistently not written.
Advance Directives
The complete plan, on one page
Everything across this site reduces to a fairly short list. This is that list, in the order worth doing it.
Digital Legacy
A digital estate checklist
The digital material across this site, condensed into a sequence you can work through in an evening.
Wills & Estates
All wills & estates →
Wills & Estates
The annual review: half an hour, once a year
Plans go out of date silently. A short annual check catches the things that have changed and prevents most of the problems on this site.
Wills & Estates
Making a will yourself, and when not to
Home-made and online wills are valid in principle and they are where most of the disputes come from. Knowing which situations are straightforward is what determines whether to risk it.
Wills & Estates
Life insurance and death benefits
Insurance and pension death benefits frequently pass outside the will, which makes the beneficiary form more consequential than the will itself for those assets.
Advance Directives
All advance directives →Advance Directives
The complete plan, on one page
Everything across this site reduces to a fairly short list. This is that list, in the order worth doing it.
Advance Directives
Living with a terminal diagnosis: the practical work
There is a period after a terminal diagnosis in which a great deal can be arranged, and using it well makes the following months substantially easier for everyone.
Advance Directives
Where do you want to be at the end
Most people express a preference to die at home. A substantial proportion die in hospital. The gap has identifiable causes and several of them are addressable.
Digital Legacy
All digital legacy →Digital Legacy
A digital estate checklist
The digital material across this site, condensed into a sequence you can work through in an evening.
Digital Legacy
Phones, laptops and what to do with the devices
The physical devices hold the keys to everything else, and what is done with them in the first days determines what can be recovered.
Digital Legacy
Online memorials and the internet as a place to grieve
Grief has moved substantially online, which has genuine benefits and a set of complications that older forms of mourning did not have.
Funeral Planning
All funeral planning →Funeral Planning
The first twenty-four hours
What actually has to happen immediately after a death is a short list, and knowing it prevents decisions being made under pressure that cost money and cause regret.
Funeral Planning
Flowers, donations and the small decisions
A funeral involves several dozen small decisions, most of which are optional, several of which are expensive, and all of which are made by someone who is exhausted.
Funeral Planning
When there is not enough money for a funeral
Funeral poverty is a documented and growing problem, families take on debt they cannot afford, and there is more help available than most people know about.
Family Conversations
All family conversations →Family Conversations
The letter you leave behind
Of everything people leave, the thing most consistently valued is a letter, and it is the thing most consistently not written.
Family Conversations
When you are both the executor and the family
Administering an estate while grieving, for a family who are also beneficiaries, is a combination of roles that generates most of the complaints made against executors.
Family Conversations
Telling people that someone has died
Delivering the news is exhausting, repetitive and frequently done badly for lack of any guidance on how.
Grief & After
All grief & after →
Grief & After
When you are the last one left
Outliving your generation is a particular kind of loss, rarely discussed, and it brings practical problems alongside the grief.
Grief & After
Losing a partner after a long life together
Bereavement in later life involves losing not only a person but a way of living, and the practical consequences are frequently as destabilising as the grief.
Grief & After
Continuing bonds: what people do with the relationship afterwards
The idea that grief ends with letting go has been substantially revised, and what most people actually do is maintain a relationship in an altered form.
About Before Last Wish
Wills, advance directives, digital legacy, funeral costs and family conversations — plain-language guidance on planning for the end of life. We publish explanatory articles rather than news, which means an article here is written to still be useful a year from now. Every piece is bylined, sourced and read by an editor before it appears — the full process is set out in our editorial policy.