Why I Created This Guide

Friday morning, my husband passed away unexpectedly, and the life I knew ended with it.

He had built five businesses, employed thirty people, and always seemed to be three steps ahead of whatever came next. He had big plans, and leaving so soon was not it. I remember that morning, someone called to ask if payroll checks would go out on schedule, and I remember standing there with the phone in my hand, having no idea where to even begin to understand what to do next... with the businesses, with payroll, with the meettings set up, with my life.

In the hospital waiting room, hugging my mother-in-law while we waited for the funeral director, I asked her the question that became this guide's name: “What’s next?”

In the months after, that question became the one I asked myself, over and over, working down a list I was making up as I went. Six years passed. The estate was settled, the businesses transitioned, the paperwork finally closed. Then my mother-in-law passed away unexpectedly too, and my father-in-law was the one left asking what came next.

I made him a printed guide — everything I wished someone had handed me on that first morning. Watching it help him is what convinced me that this shouldn’t just live in one family’s binder. Very few of us are prepared to settle a loved one’s affairs. The questions come fast at first, and then keep coming for months after, long after everyone else has stopped checking in.

"What’s Next?" is the checklist I wish I had been given. I hope it gives you back a little of what grief takes first — the sense of solid ground under your feet.

— Tatiana Marcum, Founder