“I Wanted a Car. Instead, I Bought My Mom’s Funeral.”

By Luna Mace

Most girls at my high school spent junior year stressing about prom dresses, GPAs, acne they were sure was ruining their lives, and whether they’d finally get handed the keys to a car their parents “surprised” them with. Meanwhile, I spent mine staring down the pricing menu of Oakview Memorial Funeral Home like it was a final boss in a video game no one trained me to beat. I remember thinking, in that moment, that if adulthood was supposed to be a staircase, I had somehow been shoved into an elevator that only went down — and fast. It’s funny, in a bleak, cosmic-joke kind of way: for months I had saved up babysitting money and after-school job checks for a used blue Corolla on Facebook Marketplace. I had the tab bookmarked. I used to zoom in and picture myself behind the wheel, blasting music, windows down, finally feeling like I had some control in my life. But the universe, apparently, looked at my dream car and said, “No, let’s buy your mother a coffin instead.”

No one prepares you for how expensive it is to die. Honestly, if anything, they make it look peaceful, dignified, like you float off into some luminous afterplace wrapped in a soft beam of golden light. They definitely don’t show you the invoices. They don’t show you the breakdown of labor fees, plot costs, flower packages, transportation charges, embalming surcharges, coffin upgrades, minister donations, viewing-room rentals, cleanup fees, and what I swear must’ve been a tax on oxygen because why not? That part is left out of every movie and every brochure. Death in Hollywood is free and poetic. Death in America costs more than a semester of community college.

I remember the first time Dad and I walked into Oakview. The building smelled like eucalyptus, lemon cleaner, and denial. The carpets were too plush, the lighting too dim, and I felt like I had accidentally wandered into a place where people pretend to be calm while their souls get wrung out. The funeral director, a man named Leonard who looked vaguely like a crow in human form — all sharp nose, slick hair, and beady pity-eyes — greeted us with a voice so soft it made my skin crawl. It was the same voice teachers use when they’re trying to ease you into bad news: “You did your best, but the class average was low… so unfortunately you still failed.”

Dad shook Leonard’s hand wide-eyed, like he was still expecting someone to tell us this was all a mistake, that Mom wasn’t gone, that we’d somehow started planning the wrong funeral for the wrong woman. I hovered behind him, arms crossed, resentment simmering under my hoodie like a space heater. I had cried earlier that morning — the ugly, hiccup-filled kind — but by the time we walked into Oakview, all my tears had dried into this numb, buzzing anger. The kind that makes you want to scream into a pillow or slam a door or punch capitalism in the face. Whichever comes first.

Leonard ushered us into a consultation office that looked like it had been decorated by someone who really wanted grieving people to feel guilty if they didn’t choose the most expensive option. Gold frames, soft symphony music, angel figurines arranged on shelves with a precision that felt threatening. It was a guilt factory disguised as a waiting room. Dad sat down like a man who had been hollowed out, and I sat next to him, watching Leonard open his laptop: a glowing portal into financial ruin.

He began with the “packages,” a word that instantly annoyed me. Packages are for vacations, fruit baskets, and overpriced skincare bundles. Not death. Not my mother. Not this. But Leonard clicked through them anyway, smiling gently as though he expected applause. There was the “Basic Farewell Package,” which already cost more than my car savings. Then the “Everlasting Journey Premium,” which I thought sounded like an amusement park ride. And then — the pièce de résistance — the “Forever & Ever Ultra Deluxe With Angel-Wing Lighting,” which cost so much that I wondered if it came with an actual angel included.

Dad kept nodding, which scared me, because Dad nods at everything when he’s overwhelmed. I leaned forward and whispered, “Dad, that’s like ten months of rent.” He blinked, suddenly awake, and turned back to Leonard, who was now explaining the benefits of “premium satin interior” and “handcrafted bronze framing.”

“Is there a… cheaper option?” Dad asked. His voice cracked a little, which made me want to cry again, which made me furious that I wanted to cry again.

Leonard smiled sympathetically — a customer-service smile, a let-me-gently-guide-you-into-bankruptcy smile — and said, “Of course. But keep in mind that many families regret choosing lower-tier packages.”

I wanted to stand up and scream, “Bro, we regret being alive right now!”

But I didn’t.
I just sat there.
Seventeen years old, mourning my mother, bargaining for a funeral instead of haggling for a car engine.

The coffin room was worse. I swear, I didn’t know coffins were marketed like luxury sedans until I watched Leonard glide his hand along one and say, “This one has an aerodynamic lid.”

“Aerodynamic?” I muttered. “Is she being launched?”

Dad choked on a laugh — the first sound resembling life I’d heard from him in days — and Leonard completely ignored me. Which honestly made it funnier.

The cheapest coffin was still over three thousand dollars. Three thousand. For a box. A box that goes into the earth. A box my mother would never even see because, newsflash, she was dead. I kept thinking how if I had three thousand dollars in hand right now, I could buy that rusty blue Corolla and drive away from all of this, all the grief, all the debt, all the responsibility forced onto me like a surprise exam. I wouldn’t. But the thought comforted me.

The flowers were another scam. I don’t care if this sounds disrespectful — my mother would’ve laughed — but no one at a funeral remembers the flowers. They remember the crying, the awkward hugs, the way people say “let me know if you need anything” and never mean it. But the funeral home insisted that flowers were essential for “atmosphere.” Atmosphere, at a funeral. As if we were planning a themed event. As if the theme were “elegant despair.”

They wanted three hundred dollars for a wreath that looked like something from Walmart’s garden clearance aisle. Dad suggested doing a DIY arrangement, which I actually thought was sweet, but Leonard told us gently that homemade flowers “can sometimes give off a sense of… austerity.”

I almost asked him to define austerity because I’m pretty sure he meant “poor people vibes.”

The burial plot came next. Choosing a place to put my mother felt surreal and awful. Leonard showed us a map of the cemetery like he was showing us available apartments. “This area is shaded in the afternoons,” he said. “And this area has a view of the oak trees.”

“She’s dead,” I said flatly. “She’s not going to be sitting on the porch enjoying the view.”

Dad squeezed my arm.

The “good” plots were around six to ten thousand dollars. The cheaper ones were farther out, near a chain-link fence, which apparently mattered for reasons I still do not understand. Leonard spoke about them the way realtors talk about “up-and-coming neighborhoods,” which should have been funny, but instead made my stomach twist.

We picked something we could barely afford.
Something small.
Something plain.
Something that still cost more than my first year of college would’ve.

The reception was the final blow. I don’t know why funerals need food. It’s not like anyone’s hungry after crying for hours. But traditions exist, and Dad insisted, and suddenly we were ordering cold-cut sandwiches that cost more than entire catering menus at normal restaurants. For four hundred dollars, I wanted a custom cake of my mother’s face. Instead, we got triangles of turkey on stale bread.

The final invoice came printed on thick, cream-colored paper. I think they used fancy cardstock to trick people into not throwing up when they see the total. I stared at the number — $11,842 — and felt everything inside me go silent. Like someone pressed mute on the world.

Dad’s face crumpled. Not from grief.
From shame.
Because he couldn’t afford it.
Because he knew I’d have to help.
Because he knew it meant the car, the freedom, the one thing I had been working toward for months… was gone.

We drove home in his dented truck, and I stared out the window thinking how Mom would’ve smacked the back of our heads for choosing anything expensive. She hated waste. She reused plastic bags until they disintegrated. She cut sponges in half to make them “last longer.” She would’ve screamed if she saw that invoice.

I got a second job the next week.
Then a third.
Late nights wiping tables. Early mornings sorting boxes.
Homework done during fifteen-minute breaks.
College applications scribbled between customers wanting fries.
Every paycheck chipped away at that funeral bill like I was slowly melting an iceberg with a lighter.

Kids at school bragged about the cars their parents bought them for their birthdays. “I got a Jeep!” “I got a Kia!” “My mom got me the 2020 Honda!” And I’d nod politely while imagining slapping them with the funeral invoice and saying, “I got a payment plan!”

Sometimes I’d see that blue Corolla still sitting on Facebook Marketplace. The price dropped once, and I swear I felt my heart cave in. It was like watching someone you love marry someone else.

Mom’s funeral is paid off now.
Mostly.
Dad picks up the rest. I send money when I can.
But the bitterness sticks to me like smoke — invisible, heavy, woven into my clothes.

The truth is, grief is exhausting.
But grieving while broke?
That’s a different genre of suffering.
That’s grief plus shame, plus debt, plus the overwhelming guilt of knowing you’re too young for this, but you’re doing it anyway.

And sometimes, late at night, I think about how my life split into two timelines:

In one, Mom is alive, I save enough money for the car, I get my license, I finally feel like a normal teenager.

In the other — the one I’m living — I bought my mother’s funeral. I grew up in a week. I lost innocence and gained an invoice. And every time I ride the bus past a girl my age driving her own car, windows down, music blasting, I feel something inside me whisper: Must be nice.

I’m not heartless.
I miss my mom every day.
But this is the truth no one tells you:
When you lose a parent young, you don’t just lose them.
You lose the future they were supposed to help you build.
You lose time.
Money.
Childhood.
Your place in the world.

And you gain an education.
A brutal one.
About death.
About debt.
About the price of being alive in a country where even dying has a service fee.

Mom used to tell me, “You’ll drive one day, Luna. You’re meant for big roads, not small corners.” I hear her voice in my head every time I board the bus. I believe her — or I try to. But sometimes, when the bitterness creeps in, when I’m thinking about coffins with aerodynamic lids and flower markups disguised as love, I find myself muttering, “Yeah, Mom… but first I had to bury you.”

And maybe that’s the grimmest punchline of all:
I didn’t buy my first car.
But I did buy my mother’s final ride.

And somehow, life just expects me to keep going.

Funeral costs are brutal. If you’re looking for more affordable options, Discount Caskets offers quality caskets that won’t break the bank.