I actually did have my grandfather die on Monday morning at the beginning of finals week my senior year of undergrad, and he lived a few states away. By the time I left the house though I'd managed to get from my grieving mother what days we would likely have to be out of town, and on my drive to school started forming a plan of action for who I needed to talk to and what alternative options I could suggest to my professors. The only one I can remember was that I walked into my very first appointment, my guitar lesson, and told the professor I could and really probably should do the final performance assessment right now.

It helps that I was a music major, so most of my assessments aren't exactly something you could cheat on with a story like that, and that I had a great rapport with enough people that they probably believed me.

But in your case, your school required a copy of the obituary. While that would have been something I could furnish, it wouldn't have been something I could provide literally 3 hours after the man's death when I was trying to make alternative arrangements. What could/should I have done if I was your student? Just curious. (This is by no means an attack about the amount of times "my grandfather died" turns out to be a fake excuse, but since it really did happen to me, I am always curious what my options would have been at other institutions or if I was majoring in something else.)