SMITHFIELD, Va. — A Smithfield family’s grief over their mother and grandmother’s death a month ago has been prolonged because of a death certificate.
They say that’s because navigating Virginia’s death certificate system is difficult, especially when it comes to people from out of state.
Diane Watkins was a chemist, teacher, mother, and grandmother.
"She was an amazing person," said her son, Thomas Watkins.
"When she died, she was wearing her 'nana shark' shirt that we got on vacation one year," said April Watkins, Thomas' wife.
On August 23, while visiting her grandchildren in Smithfield from Florida, Diane died in her sleep. The family says heart issues and diabetes were the cause.
Now more than a month later, the family is still waiting for her death certificate.
As the Virginia Department of Health’s website spells out, that document should be signed by Diane’s primary care doctor, who is in Florida. There are also alternatives listed, such as the chief medical officer of the hospice or nursing home where the patient died, the physician who performed the autopsy, or another doctor or nurse practitioner with the primary care practice, none of which applied to Diane.
"It seems like an odd law in a state that has a lot of people who are not from here. Our high military population, we have a high tourist population, and there are just a lot of people that don't have primary care doctors," said April.
Virginia implemented an electronic death registration system in 2014. Because Diane's doctor isn’t in the state’s system, the family said there were delays getting that sent in the mail, signed, and sent back. Now, the document is sitting in Richmond waiting for the next step.
"Waiting for somebody to hand type it into a computer," said Thomas.
Once the death certificate was signed and sent off to Richmond, Little's Funeral Home was finally able to cremate her weeks after she died, according to her family.
"We can move forward with having a memorial service now," said April. "It's hard. No one should have to wait a month to have their parent cremated. That's just painful."
Now, Thomas said they’re still dealing with hold-ups until they get the signed certificate back from Richmond.
"We can’t turn off social security, we can’t continue with probate in Florida, we can’t distribute the inheritance to the children, we can’t do anything. We can’t move forward."
That includes a standstill on grieving.
"He’s been in mission-mode, so he hasn’t really been able to grieve," April said of her military husband. "He's still trying to process what stages we need to do to get to that point where we can grieve."
They hope with her remains finally in hand, they can start to properly mourn the woman they call "mom" and "nana."
"It's a little relief having the ability to plan a memorial down in Florida," said the couple. "There are a lot of people that have been waiting to actually have a memorial for her."
Thomas and April say they hope other families won’t have to face the same delays and challenges they did because of the law regarding who can sign death certificates in Virginia.
"That's the point. It's to not do this again. As a human experience, it sucks. Let's treat our humans better. Just because of bureaucracy and red tape, let's do better," said Thomas.