Sometimes you have time to plan and strategize in advance- and sometimes you don’t. When a loved one dies, there are innumerable consequences- some logistical, some legal, some financial, some emotional- that inevitably follow. And while everyone has a different path to chart when a loved one passes away, there are some commonalities that it’s valuable to understand before the end arrives.

Starting with the very practical: Check out this useful advice from the National Institute On Aging addressing everything from legal pronouncements to possible autopsies. And this older but still useful guide from Consumer Reports is a valuable checklist to help guide you through the days and weeks that follow. And, if you have time or forewarning that your loved one is dying, you may wish to gather together useful documents and determine tasks that you will need to address once your loved one is deceased.

If you can anticipate your own death, it would be ideal for you to summon the courage to make plans yourself, so as to spare loved ones the logistical agony of making arrangements while dealing with grief, and to ensure that whatever happens is what you would have wanted. Kiplinger recently ran an article on how to make your own funeral plans (did you know that there are different ways to arrange for cremation?).  Wall Street Journal writer James Hagerty suggests you write your own obituary (Haggerty is actually the obituary writer for the Journal). He describes the challenge of writing his own obituary while acknowledging that no one knows your story and what’s important better than you do.

Perhaps the hardest part of the days after a death is the emotional turmoil that may follow. Recently on Medium, there have been a series of posts under the title, The Beginner’s Guide to Losing Your Parent, which addresses everything from what to say to your parent once you know they are dying to what to anticipate, and what help to accept, in the immediate days following the death. Finally, if you think you’re too old to mourn your parents because you yourself are already at a mature age, think again- and read this recent piece by writer Steven Petrow, who wrestles with becoming “an adult orphan” with the death of both his parents when he’s 59.