While it is good that you are planning for the future, one thing to remember... in the event of a death or any drastic thing, don't make huge decisions for at least a year. Give your mind time to clear and make decisions based on facts not emotions.
It sounds like you went through a very difficult time and I am sorry anyong has to go through loss. It hurts, it is difficult, but we must maintain our responsibilities.
Secondly, I've never paid a credit card late but in this day an time, I don't think there is anything such as a grace period.
With all bills, you would rack up late fees which grow and your credit will be ruined.
The best thing is to libe beneath your means and debt free so that the only "bills" you have coming in are those expected utilities which you should be able to manage.
I can't imagine a stack of bills and stress related to that. We choose to live so that we don't have that stress in our life.
It sounds like you are worrying about something for nothing here. If you feel like you can't handle the paperwork, etc... You should discuss the actions with your financial advisor and set up a point person to help you when this time eventually comes. The last thing you want to do is be so focused on a funeral that you lose your house, car livlihood, and everything and then make a difficult situation with your children even worse be having to uproot them because you ignored bills.
We run our own company from home and we have terms on the invoices I process. If someone does not pay within the terms, I start charging late fees which can be upwards of $300 a month ( I am talking about invoices that are thousands of dollars, not a small $400 bill or so) and when that invoice is paid, they are put on a cash in advance wired into a special account of ours or we don't sell to them. It is the price a couple of companies have paid because they decided to pay us late. Word of mouth travels like wildfire in our industry regarding companies who don't pay on time. Slow and non-payment of invoices have put some companies completely out of business because they are automatically on a cash in advance system with so many people. It can work like this with everyday people as well.......... your credit.