About the Author
Lantern
Lantern, a public benefit corporation, is the single source of guidance for navigating life before and after a death. Lantern offers free, custom checklists to make sure you or a loved one have everything in order.
Our StoryWhy do we know how hard the end-of-life and death process can be? We’ve been there. And, we were totally unprepared.
In early 2018, I found myself face-to-face with two police officers in my grandmother’s apartment. They looked at me and asked, “what do you want to do next?” My grandmother was 96 and still, her death felt like a complete shock. So, I did what we all do when we have a question, I pulled out my phone and Googled “what do you do when someone dies?” fully expecting to find something like Lantern. But, there was nothing. Being an only child who lost my father years earlier, I found myself managing what came next. From cleaning out her home and choosing funeral services to closing accounts and tracking down an unpaid Verizon bill from a debt collector for over a year (true story), I quickly realized that no matter how organized you are, this stuff is messy. And, at the time, there was very little available to help navigate it.