“Sam won’t wake up!”

With those words, death unexpectedly showed up at my door.

When my mom’s husband, Sam, died in 2019 I wasn’t unfamiliar with death, grief or loss. I’d lost grandparents and pets and witnessed friends experience more than their fair share of great losses over the years. But on the day Sam died, both my mother and I were thrust into an entirely new situation for us; the immediate day-to-day aftermath of death.

Who do we call about the body? What funeral home is the right choice? Will he be cremated? What do we put his remains into? Where should we post an obituary? When do we call insurance companies or credit card providers? How many death certificates do we need? Who needs to get a legal death certificate and who will take just a copy? We were left to navigate this new landscape on our own while my mom was wading through an immense grief that made it hard just to get through the day let alone handle all of the details left behind in Sam’s wake.

But what if there was a place that helped answer the innumerable amount of questions left when a loved ones dies, both the emotional and the day to day? What if we could have somewhere to turn to not only in the immediate aftermath of death but well before death ever makes its presence known in our lives?

That is why I wanted to start Read This Before Dying. There’s no reason we should fear death or traverse the effects of it unknowing.

- Jodi Matovich, Founder