Hello Everyone,

I am the 2nd of 5 children, pitching in to help look after our mother. Our father passed away earlier this year after a long battle with prostate cancer. When Dad died, eldest brother (sibling #3) took over and made all the funeral arrangements himself. He made the sole decision that Dad would be cremated (and he has the ashes at his house), he chose the chapel to have the service, the funeral home, the songs played, the photo's displayed and the guest list! He also chose that the invoice for the funeral would be split 5 equal ways between us children!! The whole service was pretty much a memorial for my brother - which is not the way any of us wanted to remember our father. My brother insisted that he knew Dad the best, and that this is what Dad would have wanted. Dad never really dicussed this what he wanted with any of us. We have not really had much contact with our dear brother since. My sisters and brother and I do NOT want a repeat of this hi-jacking when the time comes to do this for our mother.

One of my children recently heard on the radio a new website being discussed (www.happyending.com.au). I visited the site last night and think it is absolutely brilliant and will prevent such deplorable actions by one sibling over others. Briefly, you join up and complete a survey of questions asking what you would want to choose, if you were planning your own funeral. You can then invite family members to have access to this plan - so if you were to die tomorrow, there would be a multiple of people who would be able to see what YOU want (and therefore prevent any family fighting).

I have spoken to my 2 sisters and we will be getting our mother to join up today - and making all 5 of us children contacts to her (so we all see exactly what mother wants).

I am sure there are many other women who have faced, or will face similar circumstances to mine - well, I think i have found a solution I would like to share!

Best Regards,

Gai

I haven't looked at this and noticed the URL is Australian.

Does this require providing personal information stored in your database? If yes, I would not use it. Sorry. If it's a free form template for us to download and use free of charge, great.

I'm sorry, I wish that you ask Dotsie or jawjaw to post this..since you are new to site.