The author recalls having to make funeral arrangements for both of his parents with no preparation, which was emotionally difficult. His mother-in-law pre-arranged her own funeral, so the family only had to make one phone call after she passed. The author encourages readers to have conversations with loved ones about their final wishes to avoid burdening others with difficult decisions during a grieving period.

1. The Red Cross Has Been Trying to Find You
By Mac Chandler
(This article was first printed in the Senior Living News, March 2012, and is reprinted with permission)
The Red Cross has been trying to find you. These are words that I will remember the rest of my
life. My wife Joan and I were walking out the door of our home, about to go on leave after
completing the summer session of teaching ARMY ROTC for The Pennsylvania State University
(PSU) campus in Media, PA when the phone rang. The Professor of Military Science, my boss,
was on the other end of the line when I answered the phone, and he began our conversation with
these words, “The Red Cross has been trying to find you.” For those of you who have served in
the military, you’ll probably acknowledge that these words usually are not followed by good
news. In my case, the Colonel informed me that my father had passed away, and that I needed to
go home to take care of business, and to take as much time as I needed. So began my summer
vacation in August, 1983.
My parent’s next door neighbor, knowing that my mom was in the hospital having knee
replacement surgery, noticed that dad’s car hadn’t moved in a couple of days. She walked over to
the house to check on dad, and not getting any answer when she knocked on the door, walked
around back to look into the den. That is where she discovered my father. He had evidently had a
heart attack, and died.
Upon arriving home in Birmingham, I went to the hospital in Pell City, and momma told me to
“take care of everything.” I was 31 years old at the time, and had never had to deal with the
death of a loved one. I didn’t know who to call, or what to do. I did remember driving past the
funeral home on Oxmoor Road in Homewood every Saturday while playing baseball at the Joy
Open League, so I called Ridout’s Valley Chapel. We went to make the final arrangements for
dad, but quite honestly, I cannot remember what all we did. I was in a fog, and so was everybody
else in our family. What I do remember is that we had a wonderful Memorial Service for my
father, and that the Chapel was packed. And … that I had to pay in full for the services of the
funeral home at that time.
Five years later, in October of 1988, while attending the Defense Language Institute in
Monterey, CA (to learn Spanish) I received a call from my wife, stating that my mother was very
ill, and that I needed to be prepared to come home. The next morning at about 7:30 am
(California time) I received a call from a doctor at the VA Hospital in Birmingham, and he
informed me that my mother had just passed away. I got a similar call from my wife about 10
minutes later. Now, at age 36, I had to make final arrangements again. And once again, I had to
pay for the services of the funeral home. My parents had never talked to us children about their
final wishes, nor had they pre-arranged anything. Everything was left up to us children.

2. Fast forward nine years to 1997. I have retired from the Army, and we moved back home to
Birmingham so that Joan could be close to her parents, so she could catch up on so many of
those things that she and her mother missed by being stationed away from Alabama. In
December of that year, her mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. That was a pretty bitter
pill to take, but her mom was a fighter. Few people beat pancreatic cancer, and Sarah made it
almost three years before she lost her valiant fight.
A couple of weeks before Sarah passed away, I was sitting by her bedside just to talk to her, to
tell her what a great mother-in-law she was (she was the best), and Sarah told me, “Don’t worry.
We have everything taken care of.” She had pre-arranged all of her and her husband’s final
arrangements five years earlier.
When Joan and I went by the funeral home to review the pre-arrangements, the Funeral Director
said some pretty amazing words. “When Ms. Sarah passes, all you have to do is make one phone
call. Everything has already been selected and paid for, down to and including the flowers.” That
was it. We were not going to have to make any decisions, nor were we going to have to pay
anything else. Sarah had already taken care of it. What a brave, and loving decision she made,
keeping her children from having to go through again what she saw me and my sister (and her
daughter) go through when a loved one dies. Last June my father-in-law passed away. Again, all
we had to do was make “one phone call.”
Friends, how do you want your loved ones to deal with YOUR death? After all, we are all going
to pass from this earth someday. If you are a husband, there is only one person on the face of
this earth who has the right, the privilege, the obligation, and the responsibility to take this
burden off your family, and that person is you. No one else should have to do that. If you are
senior adults with or without children, have you and your spouse taken ten to twenty minutes to
sit down with each other and discuss what you’d want if something happened to one or both of
you? Have you put your decisions in writing? Have you discussed these decisions with your
children or next of kin? Are your arrangements paid for, or are you going to leave that burden to
your children or other family members?
In this brief time together I have introduced to you two terms: “the Red Cross has been trying to
find you,” and “All you have to do is make one phone call.” Which will it be for your loved
ones? The Apostle Paul put it best in 2 Corinthians 12:14: “After all, children should not have to
save up for their parents, but parents for their children.” I couldn’t agree more. Isn’t it time to
have that conversation?
Mac Chandler was born and raised in Birmingham, AL. He graduated from Mt. Brook High School, Auburn University and the
University of Southern California. He retired from the US Army as a LTC after 23 years of service as an Infantry officer. A
licensed funeral director, for the last five years he has been the Family Service Counselor at Ridout’s Valley Chapel, 1800
Oxmoor Road, Homewood, AL. He and his wife Joan reside in North Shelby County. Mac is a Dignity Memorial certified
presenter of both the Your Life, Your Legacy and Veteran's Service Organization seminars. If your organization would like to
learn more about either of these presentations, or you would like to schedule a no-obligation private consultation, feel free to
contact Mac. He can be reached at marvin.chandler@dignitymemorial.com, or by phone at 205-879-3401(ofc) or 790-5154 (cell).