Sana managed everything.
This was not a complaint — her husband Bilal said it with pride actually. She was organised in a way he had always admired. The household bills were on her phone. The children's school correspondence came to her email. And the savings account she'd opened for the children's futures was in her name, with a password only she knew.
When Sana died of cancer at forty-six — eighteen months after diagnosis, surrounded by her family — Bilal discovered that being organised and being prepared were not the same thing.
He couldn't access her phone because he didn't know the PIN.
He did not know which email address she used for their joint Amazon account, or which one was connected to the children's school portal.
He did not know the login for the savings account.
He did not know who her dentist was, or where her car insurance documents were stored, or which subscriptions were being taken from her personal account each month.
“She had everything under control. That was the problem. Because when she was gone, I had nothing under control — and I didn't even know where to start.”
It took Bilal four months to fully untangle their financial life. Some of it required a solicitor while some of it required writing formal letters to companies with a death certificate. One subscription — a streaming service she had signed up to years ago — continued to charge her account for eleven months before he found it.
The digital estate problem
We live increasingly digital lives. Our finances, our memories, our communications — all of it exists in accounts and apps and platforms that are password protected. And when we die, all of it can become inaccessible to the people we love.
This is a relatively new problem. Our parents' generation kept bank statements in a folder and photographs in albums. Our generation keeps everything in the cloud, behind a password manager, linked to an email address that nobody else knows.
It does not have to be a crisis. But it requires a plan.
What your family actually needs
They do not need your passwords written in a planner — that creates its own security risks. What they need is to know where to find the information they need: the name of your password manager, the location of your master password, which email address is linked to which account, which subscriptions exist and where they are billed from.
They also need to know your wishes for your digital accounts.
What happens to your social media when you are gone?
Do you want your Facebook memorialised or closed?
Your Instagram?
Your email archive?
These are decisions only you can make. And they need to be recorded.
A practical afternoon
The Pay & Cancel section of The Legacy Companion covers every subscription, utility and account. The About Me section records your key accounts and where access information is held. The My Wishes section covers your digital legacy — what you want preserved, what you want deleted, what you want passed on.
It takes one afternoon but it can save your family months.
If this story resonated with you —
The Legacy Companion was built for exactly this moment. A complete Islamic end of life planner — so your family never has to search during grief.
Shop the UK Edition or International Edition.
Related stories:
We didn't know where anything was · What happens when there is no will · She filled in the planner the week after her diagnosis