My dad passed away in his fifties too. It's very sad. As per the original question, there's a lot of good you can do with 1.5 million points in Marriott.. I know that in my family's case, they were in no mood for a vacation after my father passed away, so it may all be moot.

I'm sure there are places that your family wanted to go. I'm going to Australia in a week and a lot of people I talk to say 'that's the one place they want to go once in their lifetime'.. or something similar. I'm sure there's something like that. With Marriot's wide breadth, I'm sure you can get there from here with 1.5 million points.

Good luck!