All very true. I lost my wife 10 yrs ago to an extended cancer illness. We spent a lot of time trying to believe she could fight it, but when the end came...it came quickly. Then its like...at the lowpoint of your grief and unpreparedness, you have to host events on par with weddings or graduations (funerals, viewings, wakes, hordes of relatives/friends).

I'm thankful to the responsible relatives/friends who had been through this before, and helped me secure her personal things. The main threat was her semi-criminal sister, who kept wanting to "help", "mourn", and "be with the kids" (translation: trying to get ahold of her sister's accounts, etc). I'm also grateful to a friend of my wife's who had her son guard our house during the funeral (knowing that thieves took advantage of that moment).