Preplanning for a Less Stressful Funeral - Advice From a Licensed Funeral Director
Preplanning for a Less Stressful Funeral - Advice From a Licensed Funeral Director
Author: Jerry R. GuyAs a funeral director for nearly three decades I have assisted thousands of families in planning funerals for loved ones during their time of need. I have also assisted countless families through the years in preplanning funeral services. It has been my experience that those families who preplanned seemed far less stressed when a death occurs than those who did not.
When you think about it, when is preplanning for anything inevitable a bad idea? The same theory applies to funeral planning in my opinion. Unfortunately, many people put off planning for this final event in their lives, choosing by default to let others handle these details for them when that time comes. More times than not, those forced to complete these final planning arrangements for others are doing so on one the worst days of their life.
Unlike atneed funeral planning, preneed funeral planning allows an opportunity to make important decisions in a much less stressful environment. Preplanning funeral services can also lead to lower funeral costs as emotional overspending is generally not a factor.
Today most funeral homes offer multiple options for those desiring to meet with a funeral director to make preplans for themselves or other loved ones. It is no longer necessary in most areas to visit a firm to prearrange services. Many firms will now come to your residence if desired to make these most important plans. Many families have commented to me through the years about how much less stressful it was to make these plans away from the funeral home. I learned long ago that many people’s reluctance to do advance planning was actually based on coming to the funeral home for fear of awakening sad and depressing memories of loved ones past funerals held at the facility.
Preplanning funeral services also offers other opportunities that will lower stress when the death occurs. Many facilities offer “price freeze” and discount offerings on merchandise and services for those who choose to make formal preneed arrangements.Much misinformation regarding this particular aspect of preplanning is being written by those claiming to be experts, usually touting only one particular “funeral methodology” that limits a person’s choices. This results in only adding to a family’s funeral planning stress in my opinion. Unfortunately and sadly, many fall prey to this novice and shortsighted advice, which ultimately only harms those who need these savings benefits the most as funeral costs continue to rise.
I can honestly say that in my nearly thirty years of funeral service experience, I have never had a family tell me they were sorry they preplanned or for that matter prefunded a funeral or cremation. On the other hand, I have had many families tell me that they wish they had.
As a funeral director I would urge anyone to consider preneed funeral planning. Don’t just take my advice, talk with friends and family you trust who have done this. I’m convinced when you do, they will give you the same advice I have. This is the best way to guarantee yourself and your family a truly less stressful funeral.
Jerry R. Guy is an active licensed funeral director and author. Information on planning funerals can be found at his sites: http://www.beforeplanningafuneral.com and http://www.integritypreneedsolutions.com
Aspects of Grief - HOPE
Aspects of Grief - HOPE
By Mary Zemites
Hope moves us forward. Hopelessness is paralyzing.
Hope is defined as a belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances in one's life. When our life has been irreversibly changed by the death of someone very dear to us, feeling hopeless about our future is a natural response. We cannot see any positive outcome from this devastating loss. We may feel we have nothing left to live for. Many of our previous plans and goals seem hopeless or irrelevant. It is important that our hope is restored so that we can move forward in our lives. It is important that we find new purpose in our lives.
How can we find hope amidst our suffering?
When we experience intense suffering we gain an awareness of a whole new aspect of life and the world around us. We begin to realize that there are many people in this world who are suffering. We may discover that a coworker lost a young child to cancer several years ago. Or the school music teacher was widowed recently. Or the woman at the end of the street, who never smiles or waves at us, cares for a severely disabled son.
Life stories were swirling around us unnoticed as we focused on our own busy life. We now see that many people have a "story" and we are not so quick to judge those who suffer misfortune. We see them in a new light and, more importantly, we are getting an inkling of caring about their story and their misfortune. Even in the throes of our own problems.
Our own pain seems impossible to get through. Yet, somehow, we manage to get to the end of each day. Some days are challenging, some days we can barely endure. Still, bit by bit, we are surviving a situation that we never believed we could survive. We are developing endurance. We dig deep to find courage and fortitude within ourselves.
And in our struggle we are compelled to reflect on what is really important in our lives. We may place more value on our relationships, our faith, or what our imprint on the world can be. Our "things" may have less meaning.
As a result, our character is strengthened. Something beneficial has occurred in the aftermath of this hardship. Just possibly, we have become a better person. What a lasting tribute to our precious loved one! We have created a positive outcome from a difficult event. We have created hope.
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9 Signs of Bereavement Stress
9 Signs of Bereavement Stress
By Margo Bastos
Bereavement and loss will come to all of us at some time in our lives. Many people are losing jobs, homes and other securities in today's world. It really helps us to cope with bereavement if we are able to recognise the feelings as being normal in the circumstances.
9 Symptoms of Bereavement Stress
- Lack of Sleep or Interrupted Sleep You lie awake for hours and are not able to fall asleep OR you wake up regularly during the night. Maybe you wake up in the early hours of the morning and are not able to go back to sleep. This leaves you feeling tired and listless for the rest of the day.
- Restlessness You find it difficult to calm your mind from the ongoing turmoil that you are going through and are not able to "switch off".
- Tearfulness You might find yourself wanting to cry a lot. This is not a bad thing as crying is an outlet for emotions and built up tension. However, excessive crying is a definite sign of uncontrolled stress.
- Lack of interest Those things that previously seemed important to you now seem to fall by the wayside.
- Inability to Cope Even those ordinary daily chores, like shopping and cooking etc seem like a major obstacle to overcome.
- Panic attacks or feelings of anxiety. During a time of bereavement so many unfamiliar emotions are released and sometimes you might think that you are 'loosing it' or that something bad might happen to you.
- Preoccupied all the time. You are so preoccupied with thoughts of your lost one that you might even start to imagine seeing or smelling them.
- Exhaustion Exhaustion is the culmination of all the above.
- Irritability Even your best friend, the dog, who you never shout at, might irritate you and trivial things start getting you down.
Feeling abnormal after loss or big changes in your life is normal. Don't feel ashamed or as if something is wrong with you. It will pass, but, in the meantime - Get help!!
Have a look at http://www.diy-stress-relief.com/stress-and-anxiety.html and learn more about coping with your anxiety.
Margo Bastos is passionate about holistic healing and natural stress-free living. Her abiding interest, continuing personal research and every-day philosophy is in alternative mind, body and spiritual modalities.
She has a real estate business in South Africa and her formal qualifications include a MA in Jewish Studies from the University of Cape Town.
Together with Alan Mounter, a practising holistic therapist, she has a website dealing with natural remedies for managing the negative effects of stress. Visit at http://www.diy-stress-relief.com
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Supporting a Grieving Loved One
Supporting a Grieving Loved One
By Ruth Purple
Seeing a grieving loved one can be very difficult to bear. Sometimes you wish you can take away her pain and endure it for her. You sometimes feel helpless especially if your loved one lost someone very close and special. Supporting a grieving loved one is one way you can truly show how important she is to you. This is an opportunity for you to show your sincerity and genuineness because this is the time when your loved one really needs your help. Grieving is a complicated emotion that takes a lot of understanding and tolerance. To make it easier on your part to extend support for a grieving loved one, it's better to understand what she is going through.
It really helps if you have a knowledge about the phases and stage of grieving. The first the denial stage, this is when you loved denies the loss. For instance, if your girlfriend is suffering from the loss of her mother and is used to prepare breakfast for her, in denial phase, your girlfriend will continue to cook her mom's favorite meal. Denial is the brains way of coping with a traumatic situation. The next is anger- this is when your girlfriend will feel so much anger at herself and for her mom for leaving. After anger, the next stage is bargaining, usually bargaining happens before the loss.
Your girlfriend may want to bargain from the Almighty Above to take her mother's place. After bargaining, the dark stage of depression begins. In depression, this when she feels hopeless, powerless, bitterness, frustration, pathetic and sometimes suicidal, this stage should be monitored carefully. When she has recovered from this stage, the next stage is acceptance. This is when she has accepted the loss of losing someone and cherishes the fond memories of the deceased person. In supporting your grieving loved one, it's essential that you let your presence felt. Just be around and reachable whenever she needs you. Aside from letting your presence felt, you should learn to listen to her.
Grieving people sometimes have so many unanswered questions about death and life. These questions can sometimes make you feel uncomfortable. If you don't know what to say just keep silent and give a hug, a peck on the cheeks or squeezing the hands can say a lot more than talking. In supporting a grieving loved one, voluntarily offering help can ease her life. If you're going out for groceries, volunteer to do her groceries, volunteer to help with the chores and if she has children, volunteer to look out for them. In helping a grieving loved one, it's important to express your true concern and talk about the deceased person candidly and encourage her to open up if she feels like it.
Allow your person to recover at her own pace. Never compel the grieving person to cheer up. Sometimes this is the worst thing you can do. It belittles the feeling of your partner. In supporting a grieving loved one, offer your strength and full understanding. This is the time to show how you really love and care for your partner.
The author of this article Ruth Purple is a Relationships Coach who has been successfully coaching and guiding clients for many years. Ruth recently decided to go public and share her knowledge and experience through her website http://www.relazine.com. You can sign up for her free newsletter and join her coaching program.
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The Top 7 Mistakes People Make When Mourning the Death of a Loved One
The Top 7 Mistakes People Make When Mourning the Death of a Loved One
By Lou LaGrand
Everyone makes mistakes or fails in their attempts to grow and meet the challenges of daily life. Without these miscues little would be learned and growth as a person would be limited. In short, failure is a key ingredient for success and should be looked at as a resource for moving forward, not a behavior to be despised.
There is one exception to the above observation: when someone makes a mistake, refuses to learn from it, and keeps repeating the same error expecting positive change to occur. This easily happens in the emotional turmoil of mourning the death of a loved one. As a counselor, here are the negative repeats I see most often and what you can do to move past them.
1. Mourners grieve according to the agendas of caregivers. It is not uncommon to be told by well meaning friends or family that "you shouldn't cry so much" or "you should be over it by now." After all, it has been three months since your loved one died and you should be acting like your old self.
In reality, grief is not time bound. Each person's grief is one of a kind. And, grief revisits for months and years later. Go with your gut. Grieve as you see fit. This does not mean you should ignore the input from a wise friend in some instances. Always consider the experience and insight of others. But in the final analysis, make decisions based on what you believe deep within is right for you.
2. Mourners do not accept and grieve secondary or associated losses. All major losses involve secondary losses such as finance, companionship, wise counsel, and inspiration, to name a few. Loss of meaning, future dreams involving the deceased, and losses occurring months or years later (when a child graduates or a grandchild is born and the deceased is not present) are all strong secondary losses for many people. These and numerous other very personal secondary losses need to be openly recognized, faced, and mourned. Here is where a wise friend who is a good listener can be of great assistance.
3. Mourners isolate themselves from others. Grief itself is often a self-isolating process because the big three-anger, guilt, and depression-tend to drive potentially helpful people away, if they do not understand the nature and purpose of these emotions. Once more, the mourner often deliberately avoids contact with others and stays isolated for long periods of time. However, taking action to make connections is an absolute necessity for successful grief work. A social network inevitably is a hope resource; it is our interaction with others that brings glimmers of hope that we will make it through the ordeal.
4. Mourners do nothing about finishing unfinished business. It is very common to look back and wish you had said or done something else for the deceased when he/she was alive. Or, perhaps there was something the deceased had not accomplished or did wrong and you were unable to resolve the issue. Unfinished business is a fact of life that can become a major source for increasing the intensity and length of grief work. You may believe nothing can be done now that death has intervened. Nonetheless, many mourners have written a letter to the deceased or "talked" to the deceased to lay out their feelings and to offer or seek forgiveness. Allow the past to stay in the past. Say what you must say, realize we are all imperfect, and then focus your attention and energy on a plan to answer the important question "Where do I go from here?"
5. Mourners believe that smiling, laughing, or taking a break from grieving by accepting an invitation for dinner with friends, is demeaning to the memory of the deceased ("I should be sad all the time"). Nothing could be further from the truth. No one can grieve nonstop without becoming ill. Everyone needs respite for minutes, or more appropriately, hours. In fact, it is critical that you plan for diversions for the benefit of your body as well as your mind.
Do something that you enjoy that will alter the condition of your emotional life. And, don't feel guilty. Make a list of things you enjoy. This will take some time, given your present frame of mind. But build your list and refer to it every day. Call it your Balancing List. Don't let a day go by without doing something from your list just for you.
6. Mourners refuse to recognize that the death of their loved ones means they have to start a new life. This is a very difficult concept to accept and hard to accomplish. Yet, a part of you has died; that part that interacted with the physical presence of your beloved. Each time you routinely do something where your deceased loved one would have been present, will be a new part of your life. In order to start that new life, one of your tasks of grieving, will be to accept new routines that you alone develop.
Acceptance of the new is like the elephant in the room. You can't afford to ignore its importance as a major goal in grieving, since without it you cannot reinvest in life. You will be stuck indefinitely. Over time, those new routines and connections will become habitual and like the old.
7. Mourners seldom are aware that it is nearly impossible to love someone, and when they die, not feel guilty about something in the relationship. Often the guilt has to do with the medical treatment received by the deceased and the survivor's perceived (most often a false perception) lack of action in obtaining better care. Or, there is something else they should have done better or more frequently. Maybe they should have gotten the person to stop smoking. This is commonly called neurotic guilt and has to be tested by asking one simple question: Did I deliberately do what I feel guilty about? The answer is almost always a "no," if they are honest with themselves.
Finally, what is the overall solution to these very common mistakes? One word says it all: persistence. Persistence will pave the way to focusing your attention on the next chapter of your life. When in doubt, take action and do something to challenge the thinking behind the negative thought. You already have the wisdom within to know what has to be done. Good grief is all about good choices, choices you can make.
Dr. LaGrand is a grief counselor and the author of eight books, the most recent, the popular Love Lives On: Learning from the Extraordinary Encounters of the Bereaved. He is known world-wide for his research on the Extraordinary Experiences of the bereaved (after-death communication phenomena) and is one of the founders of Hospice of the St. Lawrence Valley, Inc. His free monthly ezine website is http://www.extraordinarygriefexperiences.com
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Some Helpful Tips on Planning Funeral Arrangements
Some Helpful Tips on Planning Funeral Arrangements
By Amy Twain
Planning funeral arrangements are never easy, as it involves pain, mourning after the loss and the discomfort of preparing for the family and loved ones left behind. In this article, I will share some tips regarding funeral arrangements and some facts, too.
1. As death takes place in the family, the primary instinct of most people is to call their family doctor. True enough, the family physician (or any alternative if necessary) would be in service of, and confirm the fact of death, and will then complete the death certificate if required.
2. Bear in mind that when it comes to funeral arrangements, there are 2 reasons why funerals are necessary and imperative.
The first one is for technical reasons. It also enables that the body is cremated or officially buried. Then, the second reason is that it helps the family adjust to death. More importantly, to remember that funerals are actually for the living and not for the dead.
3. Funeral arrangements also include floral tributes which could either be delivered to the residence or the funeral home. If sent to the latter, the cards are detached from the floral tributes and must be given to the family to recognize who sent the tributes. On the other hand, if they are delivered to the residence, normally, a tiny vase or a flower pot displaying an individual's continuous empathy and compassion for the family and the ones left behind is suggested.
The florist also sets an identification card on the floral tribute.
4. Take note that in funeral arrangements, additional funeral services could also involve other preparations of the body, embalming and the transfer of the remains from the place of death to the funeral home. Also, some equipment and services can comprise the use of the flower car and the hearse, the funeral ceremony and many others.
5. When you have a friend who is mourning over the loss of a loved one, if you want to help, it also means that you too, as a friend would share some of the pain and sorrow.
You can help and support your friend by assisting in funeral arrangements. A good time to visit a mourning friend is after about 1 or 2 weeks. It is highly essential to keep up constant correspondence with your pal two to three months after the loss. This kind of understanding and compassion involve a special kind of bonding and friendship. Your friend also needs you to share, cry, talk, bring to mind the pain, the loss, or whatever experiences or sentiments or even just to sit side-by-side in complete silence with you. It's your presence or "being there" quality that counts.
6. The children must also be given the chance to attend funerals-especially that of the family and close relatives. Nevertheless, kids must not be forced to go. It's always supportive that it should be explained what to expect at this kind of event before the child is requested to settle on if they like to partake in the experience.
The author of this article Amy Twain is a Self Improvement Coach who has been successfully coaching and guiding clients for many years. Amy recently published a new home study course on how to boost your Self Esteem overnight. More info about this "Quick-Action Plan for A More Confident You" is available at http://www.FabulousSelfEsteem.com.
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