AMY PICKARD
What they don't ever portray are the death duties — the
millions of details that someone has to attend to. I was
really close with my mom, so that task fell to me. I didn't
know what to do. When I called one of my mom's best
friends to let her know that my mom had passed away,
she asked, “Do you know if your mom had a will?” I
didn't even think of that. Here I am just trying to figure
out how to sort through the intensity of my best friend
and mom leaving the planet. I was like, "Oh, a will? Oh,
gosh. I don't know."
When I flew to Chicago where my mom had died, I walked
into her condo, and I thought, ‘Okay. first of all I have to
look for a will. Second of all, I have to figure out what bills
need paying. What is the name of the electric company in
Chicago? I had to be a detective to figure it all out. Luckily
mom and I hypothetically talked about dying, “Do you
want to be cremated or buried? Like many people, our
conversation was almost a joke. She said, "Oh, just cremate
me and put me in a mayonnaise jar and set me out for trash
day." It's a funny thing, but then you actually have to figure
out what's going to happen when her body is cremated.
You’ve got to find the best crematorium and know what
services they provide. And where’s a mayonnaise jar?
There was no book or guide to help me. I thought, "Am I
the only one that has been blindsided by all of these death
duties?" I talked to other people. They were like, "Yep.
I went through that with my mom," or, "I went through
that with my dad," and I thought ‘I need to create a one-
stop shopping booklet. Not just the logistics such as the
listings of bills, landlord information, insurance policies,
and wills. It’s important to create a history of our joys. I
love doing mom’s favorite things, whether it's watching
her favorite movie or going to her favorite café. Because
of my mom, I created Good To Go.
With the Good To Go paperwork, I encourage people
to talk to their loved ones about important ‘What If’s.’
What if you died suddenly? What if you had a stroke?
What would you want to happen? Things like that. A lot
44 | ART OF DYING
of people have a plan like, "Well, if I have a stroke, and
I can't do x, y, or z, take me out in the woods and shoot
me.” That's not a plan. That's actually a crime. You need
specifics.
A lot of people think that they need to be rich in order to
have a will. Death preparedness is for everybody. I'm not
rich. I'm single. I don't have a husband, and I don't have
kids. But if something happened to me, somebody's got
to come into my apartment and figure shit out, you know?
I love my friends so much. I’ve addressed everything.
Even if it’s “I don’t care what you do with any of my
furniture,” that can relieve them of so much death-work
and the worry over if they’re doing what I wanted or not.
To most people, thinking about death is morbid. I feel
a lot of this aversion comes down to our society that
doesn't talk about death as being a transition, just as birth
is a transition. If society would look at death as a natural
experience instead of a punishment, there would be a lot
less pushback. You can have a positive attitude around
death, but it doesn't take away the devastation of loss.
I wasn't
thinking
it actually
gives the
dying the
peace to
let go.
“
My mom died out of the blue. It was completely
unexpected. I'd never experienced death on that level
before. I'd had grandparents who died when I was very
young, but we weren't really that close. Death was new
to me. The only experience I'd had with death was from
movies or TV.