The first thing you have to do is tell a bunch of people you probably don’t want to talk to that your parents are dead. If you’re a Millennial like me, talking on the phone is a nightmare—but news this momentous is worth a call. Besides—if you text people with the news, they’re just going to call you back.

Going through your parents’ phones is a good way to find numbers for their friends and colleagues. (If you can, you may want to keep paying your parents’ cell phone bills for a few months in order to help you access the many accounts you’ll need to settle and close.)

Tips for these calls:

• “Thank you” is an adequate response. Almost everyone will say “I’m so sorry,” and you don’t owe them anything more creative or complex in return.

• People will offer to help—they’ll offer to bring food, or to come stay with you, or to call other people. Only accept the help you actually want. When my dad died, I did accept his best friend’s offer to call all their golf buddies and break the news; I did not accept my uncle’s offer to fly up from Florida.

• Similarly, people will ask if there’s anything they can do to help. “I’ll let you know if I think of anything” is fine. You don’t have to invent tasks.

• You get to determine the length of these phone calls. It is perfectly acceptable to say “I have to go now.”

These tips also go for the innumerable calls and text messages you will receive over the next few days and weeks as more people learn about your parents. You are not obligated to answer the phone, and you don’t have to respond to texts immediately. (For what it’s worth, I’m terrible at following my own advice.)

As for tonight, take it easy. Do whatever you need to do to relax—take a bath, watch trashy reality TV. This might be the only real downtime you get before you start your new part-time job as executor/successor trustee, so enjoy it while you can. Or mourn while you can, anyway.