The First Day of a Sudden Death; When the Worst Possible Thing Happens

One minute I was dawdling to the bathroom. Within half an hour to an hour, the house was filled with paramedics and police officers. You’re being asked questions about the person, how you found them, how they had been and whether they had any underlying conditions. You’re in a completely different world. Your head is everywhere, and everything is a blur.

But what happens after that?

You Don’t Need to Sort Everything on Day One

The biggest thing I would say about the first day is that you just have to get through the day. This is the worst day of your life, and all you need to do is somehow get through it. There will be an awful lot of things starting to go around your head, but there are also a lot of things you need to put out of your head.

Just concentrate on what needs to be done now. That could simply mean being with the people you love. I knew there was this whole circus of activity ahead of me. That was based only on my parents’ deaths. I had no idea what was involved in the death of a partner.

There was going to be a funeral to organise. There were going to be banks, pensions and all the other things that come after somebody dies. But there is no point worrying about banks, pensions, subscriptions, household accounts or most of the other administration on Day One. There just isn’t. Unless someone specifically tells you that something is urgent, it can wait.

You already have enough to worry about.

On that first day, I was literally in shock. I’d had such a massive shock to my whole system that there wasn’t a lot I could actually do. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t drink. I couldn’t think. I didn’t believe what had happened had actually happened.

Get Someone to Come and Be With You

When the paramedics were with us, they told me to get somebody to come over and be with me. I’m really quite a “don’t want to be bothering people” kind of person. I didn’t want to annoy people.

Darren died on a bank holiday, and my immediate thought was that people were off work, they had their own lives and I didn’t want to bother them. But you aren’t bothering them. You need someone to be with you, to help answer questions, take in information and simply be there while the paramedics do their job.

Some people might want a house full of people around them. We didn’t. For Daniel and me, it was more a case of staying together and trying to get through the day ourselves. We needed the space to deal with this awful moment in our lives. We needed to be able to cry, hug, laugh and weep together. We didn’t need anyone else.

That night, we had to lie in the same bed. We couldn’t cope with not being together. We needed to cry together. It was shell shock. It was like a bomb had gone off in our whole world and everything had been torn apart.

We didn’t know what was happening in our world. The shock is such that you are on edge, and you wonder what the hell is going to happen next. We were frightened by doors banging and noises in the house. We barely slept.

Looking back, I think that’s one of the things I would say to somebody on Day One. Just be with the people you love who are going through this with you. Your children, brother, sister, close family or best friend. Whoever those people are. You don’t necessarily have to do anything. Just be together. You don’t realise it, but you are simply trying to get through.

Find a Notebook

One of the best things I did, probably on the first night, was find a notebook. It wasn’t even a proper notebook. It was a cheap art pad that happened to be lying around the house. I’m talking about one of those cheap art pads you used to get in pound shops. I don’t even know where I found it. I started by writing the date of Darren’s death in it.

From there, I wrote down anything I needed to remember. His National Insurance number, telephone numbers for the funeral director and celebrant, what people were telling me I needed to do, questions I needed to ask and anything else that came into my head. It became one of the most important things I had.

There is so much to do, and you’re never going to remember everything while your brain is trying to process what has just happened. Write down who you’ve spoken to, who you need to phone, telephone numbers, codes, reference numbers, questions you need to ask and anything else you suddenly remember.

You Don’t Need to Have a Funeral Director Ready

One of the first things people started talking to me about was funeral directors. I mean within an hour. They kept talking about funeral directors like they were something as common as a takeaway. All my brain could think was, where the hell do I find a funeral director? Like most people, I didn’t know one funeral director in the whole wide world. Why would I? The way we found ours was almost accidental.

The private ambulance taking Darren from our house to the Royal Victoria Hospital was connected with O’Neill’s Funeral Directors. One of our relatives was talking to the people transporting Darren, and they mentioned that they worked for O’Neill’s. At that point, the last thing I was going to do was start Googling funeral directors and reading reviews. I wasn’t capable of doing that.

We chose O’Neill’s, and we were very happy with them. They were very thoughtful and went that extra mile to make sure we didn’t feel like we were an imposition with our little asks here and there. Other people might have a family funeral director or know exactly who they want to use. I didn’t. And that’s okay.

If the death has been reported to the Coroner, you can speak to a funeral director, but you shouldn’t finalise the funeral arrangements until the Coroner has given permission for the person’s body to be released.

Meanwhile, the Dog Still Needs Walked

This is the other thing. While all of this enormous stuff is happening, normal life hasn’t received the memo. You still have to eat. You still have to drink. If you have children, they’re still there and going through this too. If you have pets, they still need fed and walked.

There are still ordinary things happening while your brain is stretched to the point where you feel as though you can’t do anything. Feed the pets. Ask a friend to walk the dog if you need to. On that first day, you just have to keep on going even though it feels like the world has fallen apart around you.

Hour by hour. Minute by minute.

Your whole world has been thrown upside down, and nothing makes any sense anymore.

Just get through today.

I’ve created a Day One: Someone Has Died Suddenly checklist to help you, a friend or someone you care about get through that first awful day.

Download the Day 1: Someone Has Died Suddenly checklist