An approachable, expert-fueled guide to dealing with the legal, financial, and logistical hurdles of a parent's death—without losing your sense of humor.

Whether you’ve recently lost a parent or you're just trying to plan for the toughest day of your life so far, you’re probably experiencing a lot of dizzying emotions. Unfortunately, our legal and financial systems don’t care about your feelings. Whether you’re holding it together or falling apart, you are going to need to enter an overwhelming labyrinth of paperwork and bureaucracy.

But you don’t have to do it alone.

After losing both parents, Becky Robison devoted herself to making death and postdeath logistics easier on others—reading up on estate law, becoming a trained death doula, and starting the website DeadParentsWhatNow.com. She draws on her own experience, plus interviews with experts ranging from monument makers to morticians, to hold your hand through:

• Asking your parents about their end-of-life wishes while you can
• Getting a body buried, cremated, or donated to science
• Planning a funeral
• Securing a death certificate
• Dealing with your parent's property—or debt
• Handling even more tricky issues you never wanted to be in charge of
• And still being able to laugh, a little, sometimes

Nothing about this is easy. The good news is you have someone on your side.