In the funeral business, everything is in the details. Unlike a wedding which people often plan for months and sometimes for years, a funeral arrives suddenly and will require some hurried and frantic planning and scheduling. Pre-planning funerals helps but since we can’t always predict or schedule death, many of the details for a funeral or memorial service are quickly arranged by the surviving family members under the guidance of a funeral director. Getting all of the details right rest on the shoulders, mind, experience, and reputation of the funeral director. This is why funeral directors WORRY A LOT!
I Hope My Dick Doesn’t Fall Off
For many funeral directors the worry becomes far too much for them to handle. Many funeral directors won’t last more than five years before burning out and seek another profession. It’s not only the worry but also the personal dedication and commitment to a business that is 24 -7-365. It is disruptive to your family and social life. Funeral directors have to arrange and schedule everything in a matter of hours for a major life event! For me personally the 20 years was a bit too long. By then I was drinking like a fish. The chest pains stopped the day after I quit!
I recently asked a group of funeral directors what they worry about the most and here are their responses:
-“Flowers, grave digger, vault company, printers, obituaries, cosmetics, weather, music, ministers, permits, paperwork, families, friends, and just about everything.”
-“I would definitely think one of the biggest things we worry about is getting everything perfect and every little detail. Also making sure that the family’s last image of their loved one is one that won’t haunt them.”
-“I always worry about what I can do the nights that I’m on call. It seems that we limited ourselves sometimes socially. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve had to miss holidays and parties and nights where my friends go out because I’m on call. Granted, that is a selfish thing to worry about. But I don’t think the general public knows about that side of being a funeral director.”
-“I worry about my kids dying. I worry about me dying. I worry about when my kids die and the funeral home doesn’t take care of them with dignity. I guess that’s not really relevant for your public info, just sharing.”
-“Will I find a job after my apprenticeship?”
-“What’s to be left in a casket?”
-Aspirator line rupture!
-“Getting paid, scheduling overlap! Will the officiant show up, disease, purge, leakage, restorative art, family feuds, musicians, newspaper deadlines for obits, paperwork delays, permits, pall bearers, and paying my bills.”
-“Cancer causing embalming fumes, needle pricks, tissue gas, and my bad back!”
-“I mostly worry about the family and their complete satisfaction of my service. The reputation of our funeral home and how my life depends on it. Shrinking profits due to the growing trend of direct cremation.”
-“Picking up the wrong body, cremating the wrong body, making a wrong turn leading a funeral procession, catching a disease, the strength of the bottom of these new cheap Chinese caskets as we carry the 300lb dude up the church steps. Hope the handles don’t tear off.”
-“I worry about the fat guy in the bathtub on the second floor and the narrow staircase. The neighbors noticed the mail was building up and then they noticed an unusual smell!”
I hope that when the general public reads this that they will appreciate the dedication and respect that funeral directors across the world provide to the deceased and their family members. It’s not an easy life and demands a personal commitment that many professionals could not begin to comprehend. They help people through one of life’s biggest challenges. Their customers are distraught and demanding. Even people that are normally relaxed and easy going can become sensitized as they grieve. In a business where everything is in the details, absolute perfection can be an extreme challenge. Thank God the funeral directors are experts in getting all of the details just right!
When most people think of funerals, they think of family and friends standing around a casket, dressed in black, with tissues in their hands, feeling bad about what they might have said or failed to say to the person who died while he or she was living. Certainly, the majority of end-of-life events include some sort of memorial service. However, there is a growing trend towards celebrating a person’s life with a living funeral.
What is a living funeral?
A living funeral, also called a life celebration, is a chance to rejoice in a person’s life while they are still around to share your stories and enjoy the gathering of friends and family. Such an event can be as simple as an afternoon tea for those closest to you or as elaborate as a big, society wedding reception. Unlike traditional funerals time will be on your side and you will be able to take the time to carefully plan an appropriate final act. Living funerals also allow the guest of honor to be involved in the planning as well as experience the love and support of those their lives.
One of the most poignant and talked about holiday commercials this season comes from Germany and shows an aging grandfather putting out the word of his own (premature) demise after being told by various family members that they don’t have time to travel to see him for a holiday dinner. When the family DOES gather for his supposed funeral, he surprises them by being alive and hosting that dinner they were all too busy to attend. When asked why he pulled such a stunt, he replied that it was the only way for him to get everyone together. The last frame shows them all eating and enjoying one another’s company. Such is the logic of a living funeral.
Watch the commercial here.
Others will remember the book “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Albom (and the Oprah Winfrey-produced movie by the same name.) In this real-life story, Morrie Schwartz, who was in his 80s and dying from Lou Gehrig’s disease, attends a friend’s funeral and is saddened to realize that his friend will never get to hear all of the nice thing people are saying about him or hear their stories. When Morrie returns home, he starts planning his own living funeral, complete with a gospel choir.
My friend Ray
My first experience with a living funeral was in June 2012 when my good friend Ray invited me to his “Birthday Party.” Ray was battling cancer, and I’m pretty sure he knew it was going to be his last birthday party. Ray had never heard of a living funeral. However, he knew that he wanted to have a party with all his friends and this was his way of doing it. He rented a pavilion in our hometown park in Oyster Bay, New York. He hired a great band band. (Ray loved live music). He called the caterers and he had the grills going with some of his favorite foods. It was great, far better then any funeral could have been! Yet, in a very real way, it WAS Ray’s funeral, his goodbye present to us.
There was no formal ceremony at Ray’s “birthday party” except for a couple announcements and, of course, the happy birthday song that made it hard for me to hold back my tears. (I wasn’t alone.) Ray brought out years of scrap books and shared some stories with us.
Ray in His Element
I had to laugh when I noticed Ray surrounded by girl friends including his wife Deb all huddled together, looking at pictures. Ray looked up at me and gave me that “yep I’m the man look.” (Ray was a stud). Shortly after the party health permitting Ray took some trips and experienced as much life and friendships as he could. I gave him a good book on funeral planning that day and offered my experience. Looking back, I think he already had made his funeral plans and he never mentioned the book. His wife didn’t even know about it. Funeral planning may be my profession, but Ray was way ahead of me.
Planning your living funeral
There are many different ways you can host a living funeral. In fact, there’s really NO wrong way to do it. You can sneak it in, disguised as another type of event like Ray did, or you can call it exactly what it is–a chance to say goodbye and celebrate a life well lived.
A living funeral doesn’t have to replace a traditional funeral and it probably shouldn’t. They both serve separate purposes. Even after a great living funeral, there is still a need for ceremony, ritual, closure and to say one last goodbye. Ray died later that same year we had gathered for the birthday party, and he had a pretty good traditional funeral as well, although it was a lot sadder than the birthday party. After the funeral, we all went to the restaurant Ray had picked and he threw us one last party on him.
Timing is Everything
1. Choosing the right time. Choosing the right time to have a living funeral can be a little tricky. Ideally, you want the guest of honor to be healthy enough physically and mentally to understand and enjoy the event. However, you don’t want it to be like celebrity autobiographies, where you have a new one every five or ten years. If a person is old enough or infirm enough that his or her life expectancy is uncertain, celebrating now is a good idea.
2. Finding a good location. Like a wedding or a graduation party, you want to find a place that is meaningful to the guest of honor, can accommodate the number of people you expect to attend and be appropriate for the weather. Unlike traditional funerals, there are no taboos to living funeral locales. Beaches, amusement parks, theaters, ball parks, party centers, parks, even bars are all acceptable venues.
3. Who should officiate? If you are going to have a ceremony, where friends and family share their favorite stories about the guest of honor, you may want to have someone officiate to keep the pace going smoothly and to add some structure. Since a living funeral isn’t a church rite, you don’t have to have a priest, minister or rabbi (although you could.) One popular trend in living funerals is to hire a celebrant to officiate. In the popular vernacular, a celebrant is someone who following an interview process, writes and officiates at a non-religious funeral or memorial ceremonies. In most funerals that use a celebrant (instead of a member of the clergy), the emphasis of the ceremony is on the person, his or her life and his or her achievements without the scriptures, homilies and communion associated with a religious ceremony. Such a format is naturally well-suited for a living funeral.
4. Should you have a ceremony? The choice to have a formal ceremony at the living funeral is a personal one. The event can be a glorified party, as was Ray’s birthday bash, or be a more solemn affair, as you might have for an octogenarian like Morrie Schwartz, with friends and family members sharing their favorite memories and anecdotes. It’s unlikely that any two living funerals will ever be alike.
5. What about food? Food is optional at a living funeral, but sharing even desserts or a light meal can help to put people at ease. If you don’t want the expense of a caterer, it’s appropriate to ask those attending to bring a dish they’ve made for the guest of honor or to simply bake (or buy) a plate of cookies. Obviously, the time of year and the venue will also influence your decisions about food. “Breaking bread” is a time-honored way for friends and family to stay close.
6. Picking appropriate music. Music, too, is optional, but can I highly recommend it to help set the tone and mood of the event. Choosing the guest of honor’s favorite band or genre of music is never wrong. You can also bring in local musicians, such as a bluegrass trio or classical quartet. If you are having a formal ceremony, a soloist can be used to break up the speakers.
Some Ideas For Sharing Your Life
Things to put on display like: Photos or a memorial video with highlights of life, Family tree graphic, Diplomas, Awards or trophies, uniforms resumes and titles held.
Hobbies stuff, Sport memorabilia, Projects and creations like art.
Invitations, Who will officiate, Speakers, organizers, ushers, program handouts, musicians or DJ.
Decor, seating, tables, restrooms, parking, handicap access and assistance, the influence of weather on your selected location.
Getting started with your living funeral
You don’t have to be a skilled party planner to organize an enjoyable and memorable living funeral. Increasingly, traditional funeral directors are offering these types of events as well as their traditional funeral services. Hospice facilities are also embracing the concept of living funerals as part of their breath of services that aid in the transition between life and death. Hospice workers know that terminal illnesses often isolate people from their usual social contacts and routines. A good ritual, especially one centered around that person like a living funeral, can help to shatter that isolated feeling. Far from being depressing, a living funeral can actually help a sick person feel more connected to his or her friends. Like any funeral or memorial, a living funeral is truly an unselfish gift that is very important to the one’s we love. This is also an opportunity to showcase your loves, frame your life and cement your legacy!
My friend Ray was the most generous and thoughtful person I have ever met. I am virtually certain that he had never heard the term “living funeral” when he planned his birthday party. However, he didn’t need to know about “living funerals” to know that he (and his friends) needed one. He just did what he always did and thought about the needs of the people closest to him. That was Ray, he had good instincts. I dedicate this article to my good friend Ray Sullivan… Miss You Buddy.
Grief over the loss of a loved one can be a life-changing experience. In most cases, people may cease crying or even get used to a new life routine, but they never stop missing their loved one who has passed on. Cremation glass urns and keepsakes help people feel close to their lost loved ones in a way that is uniquely beautiful and incredibly comforting. Cremation Solutions offers glass memorial art that features a small amount of a loved one’s ashes that have been carefully incorporated into the glass during the production process. The result is an eye-catching work of art that can forever remind you that the essence of your beloved family member or pet is always close.
Ashes into Art
History is associated with various rituals and practices associated with the use of memorial ashes. Some family members prefer to keep their loved one’s ashes in tradition urns in their home. Others choose to bury their loved one’s ashes or scatter them at a location that was special to their loved one. In recent years, families have opted to transform some of their loved one’s ash into an imaginative work of glass art where their loved one’s ash may be seen swirling within the glass itself. These extraordinary keepsakes offer families a dynamic way to marry the essence of a loved one with a custom-made glass object that can be placed in mantles or even bedroom nightstands.
Creating a Custom Glass Keepsake
Enduring Fountain
Cremation Solutions offers a myriad of memorial glass art styles. Once a customer decides on a style and color for their glass urn or keepsake, they contact the company. At this point, Cremation Solutions will send out a special kit that informs that customer how much ash is needed to showcase in their glass art. All ash is kept strictly separate, so customers need never worry about any mingling of ash during the entire process. Any extra ash will be securely returned along with the complete glass art.
Life Galaxy
To create the beautiful glass orbs and sculptural glass memorials, Cremation Solutions works with a team of highly skilled glass artisans and artists, one of whom will be creating your custom artwork. During the creation process, glass artists will hand-blow your orb or other selected glass keepsake and carefully infuse it with your loved one’s ashes. During the process, temperatures run extremely high—higher even than the cremation process. The result is that the carbon is burned off the ashes so that they turn a breathtaking white, which can be seen swirling within the glass itself. Once the object is completed, the artisan will allow it to cool, which takes anywhere from 12-48 hours, depending on what size object you’ve commissioned.
Selecting Your Glass Urn or Keepsake Style
Cremation Solutions offers more than forty different styles for customers to select from when commissioning a glass orb or glass keepsake memorial. Styles are available in recycled as well as non-recycled glass. The recycled glass orbs will be created in emerald green, as these are made from 100% recycled glass from wine and beer bottles. Non-recycled glass memorial art objects can feature other colors like jewel tones available in shades of amethyst, ruby, sapphire, and many more.
Glass Flowers For Giving…
Customers can specify their color of choice for any of the presented styles. Cremation Solutions offers sculptural shapes like glass ornaments, flower stems, hearts, and icicle shapes even turtles and frogs. They also feature orbs and fountain-style glass objects. If selecting a style is difficult, talk to other family members or close friends of your loved one. The customer representatives at Cremation Solutions are also extremely helpful and can offer some advice to help you finalize your selection.
Once you do settle on your custom art object, you can be assured of the care and skilled workmanship that goes into every glass work. Unlike other forms of art that may fall in and out of fashion, these objects are true heirlooms that offer a timeless memorial to someone special and dear to you. Our customers report how comforted they feel once their glass art arrives and they can display it where it can offer solace and remind them that some wonderful essence of their loved one is still with them.
We invite customers to spend time viewing our custom glass remembrances. Each presented style is one you might choose to memorialize the ashes of your loved one or even beloved pet. Our fountain styles our available in two sizes; one stands 4 inches high and the other stands 5.5 inches high. These elegant glassworks have the look of vintage hand-blown paperweights that can be featured in glass hutch or even placed on your desk so that it’s there with you whenever you sit down to work.
We also offer breathtaking flame art glass that makes for a dramatic display of hand-blown glass and ash. These objects showcase the tremendous skill of our team of artisans. Our glass orbs and hearts are also popular shapes to consider. Within these figural objects, the ashes are enveloped in their center. Our Timeless Sphere Ornament Collection features ornaments that can be hung in windows
or anywhere you want to show off their beauty.We even figure animals shapes like frogs and turtles that are simply stunning and perfect for families whose loved one enjoyed nature. Be sure to see our figural flower stems that are truly breathtaking memorials. In the end, we want you to choose the style that is right for you and your family. We also feature mahogany bases that are outfitted with LED lights—perfect for displaying your custom art glass memorial.
Objects of Meaning Can be Preserved in Glass
Be sure to contact Cremation Solutions for help selecting your glass urn or keepsake or if you have any questions about the ordering process or glass-making process. We’ve tried to keep our ordering platform simple and streamlined, but we want you to contact us if you have questions regarding any aspect of your custom glass creation. We’re here to assist you in any way we can!
Have you ever attended a funeral at a church, funeral home or memorial chapel, and thought, “Wow, this just isn’t for me?”
If so, you’re not alone – home funerals are growing in popularity across the country. Gen-Xer’s,Baby Boomers, Hipsters and Millennials are seeking to transform institutional, cookie-cutter grieving rituals into personalized experiences that reflect the values, beliefs and wishes of the deceased, and in many cases, that means holding an intimate home funeral in lieu of a formal service.
Home funeral advocates claim that home funeral services allow loved ones more time to experience a healthy, natural grieving process – without the formality and unfamiliarity that often comes with holding a funeral in a strange, sterile place. Others suggest that home funerals help to make the passing of a friend or family member easier, because holding a funeral at home lets mourners spend time together in a warm, personal environment. Sometimes in the actual home of the newly departed, whats more personal then that!
And speaking of environments, environmentalists are among the growing list of home funeral advocates, thanks to the eco-friendly nature of holding a service at home, and skipping chemical-laden processes such as embalming. I on the other hand see no reason to not have the body embalmed even for home funerals (They Just Look Better). Don’t confuse home funerals with green burial, were just talking about the location of the funeral or visitation, you can
still have burial or cremation in the traditional sense.
Some experts have contributed the rise in popularity of ‘alternative funerals’ to the growth of hospice services, and the corresponding awareness around issues related to dying and death. As more and more people consider how, and where, they’d like to draw their final breath, the topic of funerals and cremations has now evolved into a social movement. Anytime family members actually talk about final wishes and discuss needs and wants it’s a good thing! “Have The Talk” check out The Conversation Project.
The Cost of Home Funerals
According to the National Funeral Directors Association, the average cost of an adult funeral, complete with viewing and burial, is $8,508 (2014) – a cost that has increased by 29.3% in just 10 years.
By contrast, the average cost of a simple cremation in the United States is approximately $1100, and simple urns can be purchased for under $200.
The actual cost of holding a home funeral is highly variable, with lavish events running upwards of $20,000 or more, and simple services running anywhere from $200-$1000. Factors that impact the cost of a home funeral include:
Whether or not the body is prepared for viewing prior to burial or cremation
If a casket is used, and if so, the price of the casket (or materials, if it’s homemade)
Cost of floral arrangements
Hiring an officiant (such as a celebrant, priest, pastor or minister)
Catering services/ chair rental
Alcohol and beverages
Purchasing dry ice (to preserve a non-embalmed body for viewing)
Cleaning services to prepare the home for guests
Entertainment (musicians, poets and/or singers)
Some grassroots-level home funeral advocates suggest cutting the cost of a home funeral by using a home-built casket made from recycled materials, and asking mourners to bring food to share, pot-luck style. Other cost-cutting measures include forgoing a casket altogether and either having direct cremation prior to the home funeral, or simply leaving the deceased lying in their own bed after their body has been properly washed and prepared for viewing.
Home Funerals – Reviving Old Traditions
While the concept of a home funeral might seem unusual in today’s aseptic world, the fact is that home funerals were the norm until the mid-1800’s, when funeral homes began to pop up across America. In many areas, home funerals were commonplace through to the mid-1950’s and beyond.
Prior to the advent of modern funeral homes, families would care for their own deceased, by preparing the body, and holding vigil over the casket in the parlor room
, kitchen or bedroom. Many estate homes even featured a ‘death door’ – a concealed
door leading directly outdoors from the parlor, allowing for easy removal of caskets.
Modern embalming is also a relatively new process, developed during the U.S. Civil War as a way to preserve the bodies of soldiers killed on the battlefield. Dr. Thomas Holmes found that by replacing all the blood in deceased bodies with a solution containing arsenic, decomposition could be delayed, providing wealthy families who could pay the embalming fee with enough time to transport their loved ones home for their final goodbye. Ironically, Dr. Holmes requested that he not be embalmed upon his own passing.
Is A Home Funeral Legal?
The last thing grieving family and friends holding a home funeral want to deal with is a run-in with the local authorities, so if you’re considering hosting an at-home service at some point in the future, it’s a good idea to check on the applicable laws in your area.
According the National Home Funeral Alliance, “in every state and province it is legal for families to bring or keep their loved one home until time of disposition (burial or cremation).” However, it’s important to note that depending on where you live, you may be required by law to involve a funeral director in your home funeral plans.
So, the simple answer is yes, home funerals are perfectly legal throughout North America (and no, embalming is not required by law).
The Home Funeral Advantage
Although home funerals aren’t for everyone, those who have experienced “home death care” first-hand say that the experience is perfectly natural. It allows for a completely personalized, customized funeral that is not bound by morticians’ schedules or the cost constraints associated with ‘traditional’ services, providing family and friends with the chance to say goodbye – on their own terms.
Here’ To You!
In some cases, the deceased have the opportunity to plan their own home funerals, choosing everything from the food they’d like served to the clothes they’d like to be cremated in. Even the actual funeral or memorial ceremony can be planned in advance. Today some prefer a less religious ceremony and opt for a more personal and spiritual ceremony. For this style of ceremony I recommend you employ the services of a certified “Funeral Celebrant. You can locate a celebrant in your area here. Celebrant Foundation and Institute. You can also hire a celebrant to write the ceremony but have someone else like a friend or well spoken family member officiate. Celebrant Writing Service. Advocates say this process is great for everyone, providing time for everyone to be included in the home funeral process. In the long run, this can help with the healing process.
If you’d like to learn more about cremation and the home funeral experience, contact your local home funeral advocacy association or better yet ask your local funeral home if they can arrange for home funerals.
If you’d like to learn more about cremation and the home funeral experience, contact your local home funeral advocacy association. In some cases, the deceased have the opportunity to plan their own home funerals, choosing everything from the food they’d like served to the clothes they’d like to be cremated in. Advocates say this process is great for everyone, providing time for everyone to be included in the home funeral process. In the long run, this can help with the healing process.
Although your pet’s name might be something normal or even boring, like Rover, Patches or Princess, you don’t actually call your pet by that name, do you? Admit it. When you are alone with your pet, you sometimes call him other names that border on humiliating–comically humiliating, that is. As a devoted pet parent, you dearly love your furry friend and would never, ever deliberately mean the names you call him. Cremation Solutions has decided to make a contest out of the colorfully degrading names we know you call your pets when you actually really feel true, undying love for them. There are four (4) categories to choose from: most deserving name, most humiliating name, name that best describes a certain physical appearance, and name you can’t say on television (but can say on the internet). We will be offering some really awesome prizes related to the pet products that we sell to give you the perfect initiative for entering our contest. Here’s a few things to consider… “Trendy” Names Won’t Win Any Prizes! Remember, this is an “inappropriate” nicknames contest, not a “cutest” name or “hippest” name contest. For example, if you have a female pet that you call Stella, Ellie, Lola or Mia–well, you are welcome to enter but these sort of “appropriate” names won’t win a prize in this contest. Likewise with male pet names such as “Bentley”, “Tank”, “Cooper” or “Leo”. Yes, they’re dignified but certainly not inappropriate.
Mr Scrotum Needs Some Catnip…..NOW!
Dog and Cat Name Science According to theories of pet names, nicknames that make fun of a pet’s intelligence, bad habits or physical attributes make it easier to get a pet’s attention.
They Call Me “Stoner” Do You Think I Look Like a Rock?
Hard-sounding consonants like Ds, Ks, Ps and Fs produce broadband sounds that are energetic enough to cross sound frequencies capable of attracting an animal’s attention by activating numerous audio receptors in his brain. When you call a dog a name containing “soft” consonants (Hs, Bs or Ls, for example), he’ll just giggle, shrug his shoulders and amble away. Pet names like “Snaggletooth”, “Stinkerfart” or “Diddlysquat Kornhead” are great names to use when attempting to teach your dog some manners.
In fact, research shows that giving your pet a treat immediately after saying “Diddlysquat Kornhead” quickly teaches him to understand to pay attention when somebody says that particular name. Also, if you are worried that your pet will take offense to a degrading name like Pinhead or Shitface, don’t be. You are engaging in something all adoring pet owners have done without thinking about it. Anthropomorphizing is a long, scientific-sounding word, but its meaning is simple–you’re giving your pet human characteristics that really don’t apply to him. As much as we like thinking that our pets are more human than some people we know, they really don’t fully understand our language or experience human emotions as we experience them. However, pets do respond to the tone of our voices (soft, harsh, quiet, loud) but not to the meanings of the words we use. So if you lay awake at night feeling guilty for affectionately calling your cat “Butthead” or “Fatass”, roll over and go to sleep. You love him, he loves you and that’s all that matters!
Dog and Cat Names That Might Win Our Contest
TROUBLE
To be more specific about what we are looking for in degrading names, here is a list of names that could possibly win our contest:
Gassy Geezer (old dogs and farts go together like pie and ice cream)
Loudmouth Lardass (fat cats that meow constantly because they endeavor to be annoying)
Asskissing Anklebiter (you know, those yappy, small dogs that bite your ankles then run to the nearest old lady for protection?)
Idiot Box (for all dogs that lack a few IQ points)
Psycho Killer (cats that pretend to like you one minute but want to claw your eyes out the next)
Rap Sheet Rocko (applicable to dogs and cats that commit crimes on a daily basis, such as flipping over food bowls deliberately)
Upchuck Chuck (mainly for cats–cat owners will understand this one)
Enter Our Contest and Immortalize Your Pet’s Nickname for All Eternity Just like/follow our page and then click on the link below to enter the contest! You could find yourself the recipient of great prizes and internet fame! CONTEST DETAILS
Sour Puss and Her Sidekick Zippy
Each contestant may enter one (1) name per category, allowing them the chance to win up to four (4) prizes total. Entries may be submitted through September 13, 2015. Winners will be announced on September 14, 2015.
CATEGORIESMost Deserving NameMost Humiliating NameName That Best Describes a Certain Physical AppearanceName You Can’t Say On TV (But Can Say On the Internet)
HOW TO ENTER Submitting your prize-worthy nickname is easy! Simply comment on this blog post with your best nickname and the category you are submitting it to along with your preferred contact information. Is there a story or picture behind your nickname? Share it in the comments with your submission! You can also submit by email if you prefer to info@cremationsolutions.com Remember, you can submit one (1) nickname for each category.
Silver Pendants Made With Your Pet’s Print
Prizes You can win a silver pendant with your pets actual paw print on it and engraved on the back! Click Here to See What We Can Do
WHAT! well it’s all true after one of the most extensive surveys and research ever conducted with the American publics attitudes towards funerals, all signs points to vast majority of the public would choose to use a Certified Celebrant for their loved one’s funeral. The problem is that the vast majority of the public still doesn’t know what a Celebrant is. And many funeral professionals still have their heads in the sand as to the value of offering Celebrant style ceremonies.
This post is in conclusion of our on-going series relating to the 2012 Funeral Foundation Study performed by Olson Zaltman Associates; which confirmed what many in the funeral professional already know: there is growing dissatisfaction among consumers with what can be called the “traditional funeral”. You may remember the conversation got started way back in November of last year with “Public Opinion Concludes Funeral Service Has Dropped the Ball!” where I noted the study found there is no emotional or psychological transformation at a typical funeral. In fact, most respondents felt the event left attendees feeling sad and depressed; instead “they yearn to connect with the life that was well lived”.
As the series continued, it should have become clear that I felt there was a solution: Certified Celebrants who are trained to make and energize those connections. But there’s something getting in the way, and that’s consumer ignorance: in a really casual survey of folks on Facebook, Kim discovered most folks have little or no idea what a celebrant even is or can do for them. And some of those people (believe it) were funeral professionals.
“Okay, Remind Me Again: What is a Celebrant?”
In words from the home page of the Celebrant Foundation & Institute) “celebrants are individuals trained to compose and perform the highest quality personalized ceremonies for couples, individuals and organizations.” I wrote about celebrants and what I thought they could do for the funeral profession in a blog post earlier this year, “How Celebrants Can Help the Funeral Industry“:
“In the current social environment there are many people who do not define themselves as religious, thus they may prefer to keep religion out of the funeral ceremony. Instead they may prefer to celebrate the life of the deceased live with stories, music, and videos. They may want to share funny or poignant stories that show who they were in life. Grieving family members may ask for certain songs to be played instead of hymns, certain poetry recited rather than psalms. A funeral celebrant understands these different expectations and can help…say goodbye the way they want to say it: with meaning, with words, with love, and with joy.”
When asked to describe the “perfect” ceremony a participant in the study summed up the consensus of all: “It’s closing the book. We all have books, we all have chapters. We have our history and experiences. It’s a summation of events.” Families and individuals today want the event to be a celebratory summation that cements the legacy of the meaning of one’s life; one where the personality, talents, gifts and even the quirks–those things which made that person unique and memorable—are “center stage”. The mood, according to the study participants, should be “Transformative one of true celebration, not grief”. They want to feel better, not worse, for the experience.
What’s All This about Transformation?
It seems we human beings enjoy seeing transformation happen before our eyes; just consider the “oohs and ahhs” from the audience during a performance of a really talented magician. We enjoy watching the sky lighten at sunrise; and we often eagerly anticipate both the colors of sunset and the first star sighting which follows.
And we really enjoy reading or watching stories of personal transformation. A favorite of mine is Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol“, first published in London in December of 1843. To this day (some 172 years later) people the world over continue to enjoy this story of a bitter, greedy, and totally unhappy man who is transformed (thanks to intervention by the ghost of his dead business partner) into a loving, gentle man. The kind of fellow you’d really like to call “a friend”.
As humans part of us hungers for transformative experiences like his; we hold onto the memories from a profoundly meaningful episode in our life which caused us to become “more” than what we were before. That’s exactly what a certified funeral celebrant brings to a family’s and a community’s experience of loss. And here’s the thing: a celebrant initiates transformation in a couple of different ways.
Certified Celebrant Kim Kirkley was quick to tell us of the transformative power of the event itself: “Unlike marriages or other ceremonies, funerals go to the heart of what it means to be human.” And if you read her story online at her funeral celebrancy website Life Story Funeral NYC you’ll find this beautifully-worded observation: “It is one of the few occasions where we have the chance to stand in the power of ceremony and notice that each of our lives has meaning.”
Yes, the celebrant-led service can transform sadness and enrich emotional connections; but there’s something she’s discovered during her years of service: transformation doesn’t just happen during the service. The very process of preparing for a funeral or memorial service with a celebrant enriches the overall experience of loss for families; the interview process, the memories shared and the review of the events and accomplishments within the deceased life becomes a long-remembered “milestone moment” for them, where this sought-after transformation takes place.
What’s It Like to Work with a Certified Funeral Celebrant?
Kristan McNames provides insight into the process in her guest blog post, “How Becoming a Funeral Celebrant Transformed My Funeral Home; as did celebrant Kim Kirkley during her interview with Kim. Despite the fact both were trained at different institutions, there are processual similarities. Both women have a set of questions which acts as a framework for an informal interview either in person or over the phone. “I’ve found that with several open ended questions, it’s fairly simple to get most people to open up and share stories and memories,” wrote Kristan. “I follow all of the guidelines that I was taught in the celebrant training.
Making The Connections Towards Transformation
Both celebrants try to include as many family members and friends as possible in the interview segment of the creative process. Once they feel they’re ready, each steps away into solitude to write the presentation which is shown to the family representative prior to its public delivery. (In fact, it is a part of the Celebrant Institute’s Code of Ethics “to ensure that clients have complete choice of and final say over their ceremonies, and that the Celebrant’s personal beliefs are immaterial to this process.” This caveat “encourages clients in choosing and/or approving a ceremony that is satisfying to them.”)
Kristan concludes “Celebrant services are really a reflection of the life of the deceased. They give family members and friends an outlet to share their stories and express their grief. They’re not just for people that don’t have a church affiliation, or for those who consider themselves atheist, agnostic, or humanist. People with longstanding relationships with traditional denominations can benefit from a celebrant service as well. A Celebrant style of ceremony can be held as a part of or can be followed by a traditional Funeral Mass officiated by their parish priest. Tradition and modern funeral customs can co-exist.”
Will Celebrants Ever Become Mainstream?
If we can take our casual Facebook survey results to heart (where we found very few people knew what duties a celebrant performed) it would be a short leap to the assumption that celebrancy will never “take off” in the United States. But Charlotte Eulette of the Celebrant Foundation and Institute would stop us in our mental tracks. In a recent interview she noted certified celebrants perform 40,000 ceremonies a year in this country and that number grows each year. She was even instrumental in the January 2014 signing by New Jersey Governor Christie of legislation adding “civil celebrant(s) who (are) certified by the Secretary of State to solemnize marriage or civil unions” to the list of individuals that are statutorily empowered to do so. (Read more on the New Jersey State Department of State Certified Civil Celebrants page. “This is an avalanche that’s happening. It’s huge. It’s not happened yet, but in the next 20 years, there’s no doubt it will become mainstream.” (We Have Proof) in Australia where the celebrant concept began over 25 years ago, weddings and funerals are NOW! being officiated by vast majority by Celebrants.
Here’s something else: if you’re a funeral home owner, adding celebrant services to your firm’s offerings can transform your business. It’s not just my opinion: Kristan McNames, CFSP and co-owner of Grace Funeral & Cremation Services thinks so too (enough so that she became a certified celebrant through the In-Sight Institute in 2012). In the post mentioned earlier, she wrote “We only have one chance to rock it, to make it memorable; to make sure that everyone in attendance leaves the room feeling like the time they spent meant something. There are too many meaningless funerals with those in attendance just going through the motions, too many people telling me at community events that they want to be cremated and thrown to the wind, too many people with funeral horror stories. It makes me sick, and makes me fear for the future of my profession. We have only one chance to get it all right. And becoming a Certified Funeral Celebrant has helped me get one step closer to getting it right for the families I serve.”
I couldn’t have said it better. But I’m sad to say Kristan is an exception rather than the rule: most of the funeral home owners and directors I’ve spoken to about celebrants stand in the other “camp”; the one where celebrants are viewed with caution. One director honestly confided “I’m not big on them. I’ve seen two. It’s all nice and everything, but I don’t think it does it for me. I think it’s strictly a fad.”
Celebrant Elizabeth Phaire says that celebrant ceremonies serve a genuine need, and with each of the over 50 funerals she has officiated awareness grows of her highly personalize services. She has experienced a steady increase in the adoption of celebrant services from funeral directors in her area. She is being requested more and more from both the public and the funeral homes she works with, and has received only positive feedback.
Glenda Stansbury of the In-Sight Institute is a practicing celebrant, adjunct professor at the University of Central Oklahoma Funeral Department and a licensed funeral director/embalmer) believes most funeral professionals see celebrants as quasi-clergy, which significantly limits their acceptance of their services. Even Kristan McNames was cautious and states that she “didn’t do anything” with her celebrant training for a long time because she “didn’t want to offend the clergy connections our funeral home had (and depended on).” Elizabeth does not see a conflict with clergy, the families she serves request a non-traditional Officiant and without her help would have no one to officiate.
Recently after Elizabeth served an interfaith family who lost a 19 year old to a drug overdose, the funeral director thanked her and said “Elizabeth, no one does what you do”. He was referring to the way she was able to work with the family’s multiple religious and spiritual beliefs, and weave them with creative rituals into a meaningful ceremony that was a comfort to all in attendance. Through the extensive and healing interview process that celebrants use, she captures the essence of the deceased as a person, and the many ways their life impacted loved ones and the world. She designs ceremonial elements that are emotionally significant to the family to the family, and facilitates their expression of grief and love. An intensive amount of work and expertise goes into guiding the family and creating a fitting ceremony for their unique needs, which speaks to the value of a certified Celebrant. Glenda’s very cautious about the idea that funeral directors can also be effective celebrants. “I love the concept, but there are major time constraints which make it hard, if not impossible to do both jobs well. Instead she advocates a funeral director partner with a celebrant and act as a “Master of Ceremonies” to introduce the celebrant and retain “ownership” of the family and the service.
There is hope for widespread acceptance of celebrants, sooner rather than later (20 years does seem like a long time to wait). In fact, the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association feels strongly enough about the worth and transformative power of celebrants to have committed to publishing articles written by celebrant trainer Glenda Stansbury, as well as stories from experienced celebrants like Linda Haddon, who works with Evans Funeral Chapel in Anacortes, Washington. In her 2014 ICCFA Magazine article “A Celebrant’s Goal: Wow! Every Family, Every Service” she wrote: “Celebrant services provide the best advertising you can have—word of mouth raves about what people can expect from your services. These services do involve more time and effort, from the family interview to the composing of the service, the staging, coordination of music and other detail. This is why the fee a Celebrant charges can easily be double the amount of the usual clergy donation fee. But if you weigh the importance of a well crafted funeral ceremony against all the other charges associated with a funeral, the cost of hiring a certified celebrant is the biggest bargain on the funeral bill! ” She ends on a cautionary note: “But these days, funeral professionals to not offer celebrant services isn’t really a choice, unless you choose to slowly but surely watch your funeral home go out of business. I guarantee, if you don’t offer families the choice of unique, personalized services, someone else will.”
Here Are Links to Previous Articles in This Series
Ask someone that question and you’ll probably hear, “Oh, you know…” And most of us really do know what the person means to say, but few can find the words to describe our emotional reaction to that question. There are clues hidden in the answer, though: people don’t talk about the funeral home, the brand new hearse or how thoughtful the funeral director was. They talk about the funeral and how it made them feel.
Where Are My Pills!
But when prodded, participants in the 2012 Funeral Foundation Study found the right words – and quite a few of them, at that. None were positively impressed by the experience. They described a traditional funeral as being like a lonely, lifeless tomb: suffocating, confining, cold, sterile, lifeless, and dark. After the service, family and friends remain sad and disconnected. In short, “it’s just about death and death is depressing,” the service makes them feel “sad and lonely,““there is nothing positive about it,” and absolutely “nobody wants to go to a funeral.”
Why are traditional funerals usually so sad? It’s easy to understand, really: it’s about fear. Death has always frightened us, and when we’re face-to-face with it, we’re scared, sad and uncomfortable. It’s so big, and so capricious; death can take any one of us at any time. Who wants to stare that reality in the face for very long? No one does, and the prospect of having to do so can make us scared–an emotional reaction which is akin to sadness. In fact, the emotions of fear, sadness and anger arise in the same part of the brain, the amygdala. No wonder they feel so much the same!
Scary Stuff
Death is scary; it always has been. The death-related rituals humans have created over thousands of years commonly share expressions of this fear, and little evolution has occurred is our emotional reactions. As Curtis Rostad, CFSP, penned in his book The Basics of Funeral Service, “We would like to think that in these modern times, our state of enlightenment would have totally dispensed with such thinking, but such is not the case. Even today, death is approached from a standpoint of fear.” From my experience I would say the more we avoid the thought of someone dying, the scarier it is when the reaper comes a-knockin’. People are sent off to nursing homes and then to die in hospitals; death is set off to the side of society. Those families more involved leading up to death are more in touch with the reality of death when it comes. Hospice helps a lot with keeping death real but as any seasoned funeral director will tell you, hospice has no clue as to the importance of funeral rituals and ceremonies.
But, it seems here in the United States we’re ready to let go of fear altogether. People want to make death real again and understand the importance of being part of the funeral process. In fact, most of today’s families want to put “fun” in funerals: they want to celebrate the uniqueness of the deceased, and the gift of life itself. But, as you’d expect, there are folks who hold the opposite opinion, like the fellow who wrote this forum post: “While I like the spirit behind ‘funerals should be a celebration,’ I disagree. I used to think that this was a great idea until my father died. For the five days until the funeral, I was in this kind of haze of shock and depression. It didn’t sink in and I couldn’t be happy about anything. The funeral was absolutely horrible, I cried and cried and cried…but it was good for me. Funerals allow you to get all your grief out and start getting on with your life. Having a party as a funeral is a nice idea, but I think it defeats the purpose of a funeral. A funeral is a place to cry and sob and be sad and say goodbye, so that you can be happy and celebrate another day.”
Another wrote, “Resist the overwhelming desire to get back in your car and drive away. Funerals are not about your feelings. Do what is asked of you, do not argue. Read in front of hundreds from the Bible, be a pallbearer, kneel before the casket, take Communion. You are the strong young, there to support the grieving old.”
Certainly these opinions are a rarity these days; most folks would disagree. In fact, the common belief today is that traditional funerals “allow us too easily to forget the individual and dwell only in the ritual.” No one wants to be forgotten, ever. And if the ritual is mindless and meaningless to those in attendance, why even bother? As one study participant said, “just…bury the old broad and let’s get on with our lives.”
None of this comes as a surprise. If you read Part 3 of this series, How Consumers See Today’s Funerals (and What We Can Do about It), you’re already very much aware that most folks are dissatisfied with our traditional death rituals; they are looking for something more. They’re looking for transformation.
A good funeral should be transformative – it can balance you and take you away from that sad, pensive state. It brings light and life into the room, pushing out the darkness. It’s a service which presents a loving overview of the individual’s whole life, not merely a reflection on the fact of their death. As I wrote in Part 3 of this series, “As a funeral director, I believe our biggest value is the ability to create a healing environment where people can come together for a memorable experience. This experience should promote those in attendance to support each other in their grief. The life of the deceased is the star and the theme is how that life affected their world and the world of others.”
The way the ceremony makes people feel needs to be at the very heart of everything we do as funeral directors. Most of the other stuff is just the mechanics and fluff of the funeral. Yes, you read that correctly: I said fluff. Was your funeral home a good janitor of the dead? How nice did the funeral home look? How well did the attending staff look and act? Were they helpful and considerate? They better be! All these things are important, but what do the people remember? Why, the funeral of course!
And who does the funeral? I should say who officiates at the funeral, because funeral directors don’t. The funeral directors gave the funeral ceremony over to the clergy many years ago. The funeral home merely facilitates and organizes it, in most cases. Some funeral directors are now training to officiate funerals by becoming certified funeral celebrants. They receive their training at Insight Books and the Celebrant Foundation and Institute.
The ceremony and the way it makes people feel is the real value. Clergy are quite often more interested in reinforcing religious dogma, which can heighten the sense of emotional disconnect for those in the audience.
A funeral should be about love; the love we have for each other, ourselves…for the planet and for life itself. It’s about the connections we make and weave into our quilt of life. Life has many chapters and people need to know “The Whole Life” and where they fit in. But they also want to learn about those chapters which come as a total surprise. It’s a great feeling to learn new things about an old friend, even if it’s at their funeral! People come to funerals sometimes to see and feel how they fit into the life that was lived. They want to know how they fit into the equation and some come to justify their own existence.
So how do we as funeral professionals take back the funeral? I’ll give you one guess (and if you read either Celebrants Will Save the American Funeral or How Celebrants Can Help the Funeral Industry you already know the answer: we need to bring celebrants into the mix. Their work is to shine a light on the life of the deceased, effectively transforming the funeral service from the darkness of death and loss into the light of life and love. Not only do celebrants make the service meaningful and transformative, their work is helping funeral directors take back the funeral, one life at a time.
If you don’t believe me, in the next post in this series you’ll get to hear from the celebrants themselves, and the funeral directors who know the value of their services. Whether traditional or non-traditional, a funeral service can – and should! – be a deeply personal experience. Perhaps it will mean something different to everyone there, but it should always reinforce the value of the life lived, and the value of the relationships, the loving connections, between the deceased and each of the individuals in the audience. Next time, we’ll look at exactly how celebrants can do that.
If you’re a funeral director who has already brought celebrants into your service arrangements, we’d like to hear about your experiences–and feature them in our upcoming post. The same is true if you’re a celebrant, or if you’ve attended a service led by a celebrant. It’s your turn to stand up and be heard.
Funerary art and jewelry have played a strong role in commemorating the loss of a loved one throughout history. Memorial jewelry initially gained popularity because there weren’t many alternatives for remembrance; photography didn’t exist and there weren’t a lot of options for tangible mementos. While many technological advances are available to our society today, memorial or cremation jewelry continues to be popular as a very personal and meaningful way to hold on to connections to those who have passed. As this ancient tradition continues and even grows in popularity today, Cremation Solutions is happy to offer a wide array of cremation jewelry and customized services that turn a small amount of your loved one’s ashes into an heirloom creation that you can wear close to your heart forever.
Preserve Your Connection
During the Victorian period it was common for people to save small locks of their loved ones’ hair within jewelry like lockets. This practice has never gone out of style and it likely never will. People will forever mourn the loss of a loved one just as they hope to celebrate the wonderful aspects of their loved ones’ lives. Cremation jewelry helps people remember that connection, and helps to reinforce that the love shared will never truly be gone from their lives.
Types of Cremation Jewelry
There are various types of cremation jewelry that suit a wide range of budgets and style preferences. From colorful beads and charms to elegant pendants and more, we’re sure you’ll find something special to commemorate a loved one. We even often a selection for pets who have passed on. In addition, commemorative jewelry makes a meaningful gift for family members, who will appreciate having something to treasure that reflects the pure essence of their loved one.
Cremation Solutions offers three primary types of cremation jewelry:
Custom-made jewelry (such as glass and ceramic pieces) where the ashes are infused into the material during creation to become a permanent part of the piece.
Cremation crystals and diamonds actually made from the natural elements of the ashes.
Jewelry designed to be easily filled by the customer directly. Each piece has a hollow chamber into which a very small amount of ashes can be added.
Cremation glass jewelry is colorful and makes for a lovely medium for preserving a small amount of your loved one’s ashes. Cremation Solutions offers a dazzling array of styles and colors. Each pendant is handmade by an artisan who specializes in glasswork and glass-making techniques. Choose religious motifs like crosses or sentimental designs like hearts. You’ll find lovely glass designs to consider such as infinity symbols and abstract geometric shapes. Glass jewelry is durable because it’s formed as a solid, so you don’t have to worry that it will be more fragile than any other type of jewel, which makes it an ideal consideration as a cremation jewelry item.
To create a dazzling keepsake, consider ordering a crystal infused with your loved one’s ashes amidst beautiful sparkle and shine. The ashes are infused into crystal during its creation, using a patented process. Our crystal design gallery is filled with colorful pendants, rings, and earrings. Each crystal has an innate and radiant glow, perfect for reflecting the beauty and the timeless essence of your loved one.
Cremation Solutions offers certified, high-quality, custom diamonds infused with the ashes of your loved one to stunning effect. These high-end jewels will truly become breathtaking heirlooms for you and your family to treasure. Each diamond is inspected, authenticated, and graded. These are true diamonds, created with the same chemical makeup and properties as mined diamonds. Choose from an array of colors, including elegant white, enchanting blue, or regal red to create a jewel that you’ll want to wear every day, for its beauty and for the ashes within its sparkle.
When you visit Cremations Solutions, you’ll find we have a myriad of galleries devoted to cremation jewelry designs. We invite you to peruse each one to discover your favorites. Within our traditional collection, you’ll find crosses, hearts, stars, and other meaningful symbols. Our modern collection boasts attractive and sophisticated styles that gleam with precious metals. Our nature collection features natural elements like seashell designs, birds, butterflies, leaves, and acorns. We even offer memory beads and charms perfect for Pandora-style bracelet systems. You can choose a design that reflects your interests or your loved one’s former interests, or contact us about creating a custom piece for something that is truly unique. Our artisans are happy to hear your ideas and collaborate with you to achieve the design you are after.
Ordering Your Cremation Jewelry
Jewelry To Hold Ashes
Once you decide on a jewel or jewelry, Cremation Solutions will send you a kit with detailed instructions on sending us your loved one’s ashes. In most cases, we only require a small amount. If you send us more than we need to create your jewelry, we will return the excess to you along with your beautiful piece of jewelry. We assure you that we take exceptional care of each order. Ashes are scrupulously labeled, contained, and tracked. Our process ensures the integrity of each order.
As Cremation Solutions is a well-respected New England-based company that specializes in cremation memorials and creations. You can trust our artistry and impeccable customer service. Every piece of jewelry we undertake to create is precious and we honor the role we play in creating this meaningful commemorative jewel that preserves your loved one’s ashes and memory.
If you have questions about our ordering process or our patented creation process, please contact us so we can share more information with you. We hope you’ll get to know our collection of jewelry and that we may be of service if you ever desire to honor your loved one with the timeless tradition of cremation jewelry.
It’s not really very surprising but, no matter their reason for being there, it seems people reallydon’tlike to go into most funeral homes. Participants of the study said funeral homes are “sterile,” “cold” and “intimidating.” One went so far as to say “it separates you from the outside like a coffin.” You’ve got to admit: the picture these words paint isn’t at all inviting. And perhaps neither is the idea of making significant changes to your facility–but if you read the most recent post and did your homework, you’ve already gotten a head start.
Don’t remember your assignment? We challenged you to go around your facility asking yourself this question: “What signal is it sending?” Depending your level of interest, it could have taken just a few seconds to complete (“Hey, it all looks good to me!”), or far longer (“Oh, that could be a problem. And chances are those drapes have got to go, and the…”) However long it took, we’ll bet when you were done, there was an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of your stomach. That’s because, if you thought “everything is a-ok”, you’re now concerned you were just kidding yourself (or downright delusional). Or, if you now have a long list of potential problems, you may be feeling anxious or overwhelmed by the tasks that lie ahead. Set those feelings aside, and let’s get down to specifics.
There are Four Major Goals
According to the researchers, in order to dispel these very negative impressions, funeral home design must focus on achieving these four things:
Minimizing the feeling of physical and psychological confinement
Providing consumers and mourners with a stronger sense of control
Encouraging creative thinking in the planning process
Highlighting that the funeral home is an area where a transformation takes place
Researchers made some very specific suggestions: you’re to encourage social interaction, making the funeral home “come alive” with a man cave like feel where mourners can retreat for relaxation; rooms with writable walls, outdoor gathering places, and a chapel that looks less like a chapel and more like a living room.
To reduce the uncomfortable sense of “confinement,” funeral home owners should incorporate outdoor areas (perhaps one for congregation and one for quiet reflection), bring in more natural light, and create comfortable, open indoor spaces.
I know these are really big recommendations, and major changes like these take time (and solid planning). But where do you begin? That’s easy: with the very first thing a visitor to your funeral home sees.
The Entryway
Welcome Friend
Go stand outside your funeral home and try to view it with new eyes; pretend this is the first time you’re seeing it. Ask yourself: what does the entryway look like? Is it clean and well-swept? Is the landscape well-maintained? In my opinion, entryways are the most important: it’s all about first impressions. Keep it light and inviting and understand that people want to know where to go: your signage should be clear and highly visible. My friend and collaborator, Kim, spoke with MaryAnne Scheuble, an interior designer and author of the Nomis Funeral & Cemetery News “Designing Woman” columns. In “Design Plan: Where Do I Start?” she was decidedly practical, simply asking readers “does the entryway have a safe yet attractive surface for bad weather conditions?” These are things which can make a huge difference in making visitors feel welcome from the moment they arrive at your door.
Lighting
Start Outside and Bring it in
It’s really a no-brainer: good lighting sets the tone and creates the atmosphere in a room. Lucy Martin, author of The Home Lighting Effects Bible, argues “the key is to understand the use of that room and apply the relevant lighting to ensure it functions well.”
According to Ms. Martin, you’ll want to hire a designer who can set the balance between task lighting and mood lighting, use lighting to enhance small spaces (or break up large open ones), and take into account the effects of reflection and shadow in a lighting scheme. “So much has changed in lighting over the last two years, it is a minefield to understand so if at all affordable get help. It will reap dividends in the future.” If you can’t afford a certified designer, I would recommend that you head over to your local lighting store and have a professional consultant visit your funeral home. In the meantime, however, here are some tips to get you started:
FUGLY
Get rid of those torchers and cosmetic floods and redneck bulbs you use to make the deceased look more life-like. Really, where else do you see these things? There’s got to be a better way to get some pink light on the bodies. And while we’re asking, do we really need the pink light?
Make the switch to Compact Florescent Light and Light Emitting Diode bulbs (CFLs and LEDs). It will lower your overhead and impress your customers that you really do care about the planet and the whole green thing.
Lighten up the drapes and let in the natural light as much as you can in every room. The days of heavy damask drapery are long gone. Today it’s all about bringing in natural light, and reducing oppressive feelings. Dump the drapes. Period.
Get rid of those old table top brass lights with the giant ugly cloth lampshades. “Oversized lamps are out-of-date”, says MaryAnne; and we agree. Kim can’t begin to tell you how many times she’s seen photos of facilities where the lighting was just plain awful: pockets of bright light from floor and table lamps, surrounded by a sea of dark shadows. This is not the place for darkness; nor is it the right place for clinical lighting like in a hospital examination room. Remember to think “task” and “mood” lighting and provide adequately-lit transitions between task-oriented spaces.
MaryAnne Scheuble (in that same column noted above) offered three points-to-ponder regarding lighting when taking a second look around your funeral home (spoiler alert: that’s your homework for this week):
Is there directional lighting for flowers or memorabilia?
Does the room look balanced and visually interesting?
Are seating areas welcoming?
Carpeting and Floors
We’ve all seen some wretched carpeting, but hopefully not in your funeral home. If your firm’s carpeting is showing its age and is stained or just plain ugly and could be the cause of that “old smell”, it’s a relatively easy and inexpensive fix in the big scheme of things. My rule of thumb: if you wouldn’t put it in your house, don’t put it in your funeral home. Think light and airy, but remember you will have to keep it clean. I personally like the area rugs of artist Susan Sergeant. Or, if we want to be conscious of the potential for coffee and tea stains, how about hardwood or bamboo flooring in the coffee area?
Wallpaper, Paneling, and Paint
So who watches any of those home improvement television shows? If you do, you’ll know the paneling and wallpaper in your funeral home has got to go. The first thing they do is to tear this stuff down and so should you. It’s outdated, faded, peeling and ugly.
If your walls are painted, ask yourself if the paint is peeling, stained, or if the color is out-of-date. MaryAnne asks you to consider, before repainting, whether the paint color should be the same in each room (or should each room have a different color theme).
Draperies
Earlier I advised to dump all the heavy drapery in your funeral home. But MaryAnne encourages you to ask yourself these questions:
Are your window treatments appropriate to the total design?
Do they provide “architectural” interest in a plain room?
Are they too full or heavy-looking?
Is their purpose to cover unattractive views or do they allow natural light?
Here’s something you might not know: there’s actually a professional association for people who make window coverings. That’s right: the Window Covering Association of America, where you can find a window covering specialist in your area. If you’ve got window covering issues, it might be the right time to call in reinforcements.
Furniture
Belongs in a Museum!
There’s certainly an abundance of styles: classic contemporary, modern, traditional, eclectic, rustic and even something called vintage industrial (which, although cool, may not be quite right for a funeral home). Again, it comes down to checking the simple things (before making any big changes):
Is seating firm and comfortable for those with hip, knee or back issues?
Are there pieces available to accommodate generously-sized people?
Examine all furniture for sagging seats, rumpled cushions, and weak or unsteady legs.
Do tables have scratch marks or stains?
Say Yes!
Wall Art
I have some strong opinions about wall art. Art can make a huge difference in the feel of your décor, but I would urge you to modern it up! Make it real with real pics of people in your community doing all the stuff that make your community great! Use local scenery and highlight local events, like the town fair, the river, the mountains; whatever makes your community and region unique.
And in no uncertain terms, absolutely nothing dark and dreary! Visit your local frame shop and tell them you want to get hip! Frames can add so much. Giant gold gilt frames were beautiful about 200 years ago!
MaryAnne notes that “wall groupings are good; sparse or non-existent wall décor is neither inviting nor interesting.” If you check out the Designing Woman column for February 2015, she’ll introduce you to two firms who know the value of wall art. Coyle Funeral Home in Toledo, Ohio, where, “at the end of (a) hallway, guests are greeted with a hand-painted mural of double doors opening to a lush garden. Well-positioned spot lighting completes the effect of this trompe-l’oeil. Nearby furniture anchors the scene to reality. It is as if you could walk into that garden and escape into a more beautiful, peaceful world”.
Smith Funeral Home in Grinnell, Iowa features an equally memorable moment when, she writes, “a step in the door leads the eye to some remarkable antiques. The second look takes in in a long hallway carpeted in a Meadow Green color is punctuated by several wide doorways. The third glance is the most captivating: an artistic collection of veterans’ memorabilia from World War I through the present.” Here’s her bottom line: “funeral homes need to bring in more art; it soothes the soul.”
Ambient Temperature and Overall Air Quality
Is your funeral home warm enough? Maybe it’s too warm. Are there pockets of cold air, or bothersome drafts? Certainly opinions differ as to the right indoor temperature, but most experts tell us the comfort range is between 62°-74°F.
And while we’re looking at the topic of air quality, does your funeral home smell bad? My big tip of the day: burn candles. I prefer Relaxing Rituals Comfort Blended candles from Yankee Candles. They’ll get the whole place smelling inviting and awesome.
Outdoor Areas
This can be the most important part of your property. Wherever you’re located, seasons permitting patios and garden areas should be easily accessible to those in attendance. Outdoor funerals can separate you from the competition. Look at all the outdoor weddings these days! In many rural areas, people would prefer to get married on a farm in a cool barn over any fancy catering hall. I believe they prefer real to fancy fake. In life and death when the going gets rough, people will always turn to nature to seek balance.
In the End
It comes down to making people more comfortable in what is a thoroughly uncomfortable situation. We want to contradict their expectations, and – to some degree (as in the case of Coyle Funeral Home trompe-l’œil mural) – to surprise them.
John McQueen spoke of this quiet surprise: “When a family comes in, the first thing we do is to give them a tour of the facilities. Usually they say, ‘This just doesn’t feel like a funeral home.’ Because I am who I am, I then ask them (somewhat jokingly) ‘Do you frequent funeral homes a lot?’ Nine out of 10 have never been in one. But they have a preconceived picture in their mind, and in renovating our facilities, we’ve done everything to contradict that mental image. In fact, we tore out all the heavy drapery about 15 years ago, and we’ve always done our best to not make it feel like a funeral home. ”
Alan Creedy remarked, “If I was building a new facility from scratch, every public room would have lots of windows for natural light, and I’d bring the outside in–eliminating that feeling of confinement described by the study participants.” He goes on to answer his own question: “What would I do if I had to work with an existing facility with none of the study-recommended features? I’d hire a certified interior decorator or designer–not your wife’s best friend or maiden aunt– but a fully accredited and recognized professional to assist me. I’d give them a copy of the study, and tell them, ‘This is the reason behind the changes we need to make’.” (Certified interior designers can be found on the website for the Certified Interior Decorators Association.)
Need additional inspiration? We’ve been prowling around the internet, and found dozens of galleries of wonderful funeral home design and decoration ideas, and I’m sure you can too. Here’s a short list to get you started:
What’s up next for you? Your homework this time around is to take that second look around your funeral home facility. Again, take notes, and keep them in a safe place, because we’re not done yet. See you next time around.
Death is part of life. We all know that, yet many of us are unprepared for it. Loved ones left behind are unsure how to go about laying their deceased family member to rest other than the basic burial or cremation. The funeral is often assumed to be a part of the burial, so they may expect matters to simply fall into place as they just go through the motions: Eulogy, followed by kind words, followed by psalms, followed by hymns, and so on.
You can rise up and go beyond the emptiness of boring traditions and help a lost and grieving family members celebrate the life of their loved in a different and better way with Funeral Celebrants who understand what your clients want and need to say goodbye in a way that feels whole and provides a transition to move on.
Families depend on you to create a memorable funeral.
When family members come into your funeral home to arrange things, they are often dull with grief and expecting you to plan the funeral for them. You will ask them about their loved one and try to come up with enough information for a basic obituary. You can hand the funeral ceremony over to your choice of clergy, knowing you can count on them to get the expected job done. Im sure the clergy will get just enough information to be able to express who the deceased was in life: their beliefs and what they meant to their survivors. The bare essentials created out of those simple guidelines, plus some psalms and hymns to tie things together, you have the basic and expected funeral.
The best way to gain the trust and loyalty of the families you serve is to exceed their expectations! There is a better way and to prepare a funeral that celebrates the deceased and helps those in attendance move through the transitions needed to embrace a life lived and support each other through feelings that are unique to each individual. Funeral celebrants are trained and certified to write beautiful and creative funerals that go beyond the expected funeral.
We can help you create memories of joy for loved ones left behind.
Funerals Can Be Enlightning
Families and friends who have attended traditional funerals often leave as sad as they felt when they arrived. The eulogies often simply address the years of life lived, who they loved and raised, and what they did for a living as they did their duty for love and family. That is all well and good, but what about the joy the deceased had in life? What did they do that gave them pleasure and laughter in life? What did they value and share with their spouse, children, siblings, and friends? What message did they value so much that they would hope would continue beyond their life span and be carried by those they touched in life. Celebrants ask these questions with a complete questionnaire and interview process that stimulates survivors to share real life stories of the deceased. They then craft all they learn into a well written a memorable ceremony that shares their beliefs, values, humor, love, and joy through words, video, music, and anything else the symbolizes the life of the deceased.
When the family comes into your funeral home, they are lost and often unable to think clearly about the funeral. They may be thinking of details such as the casket and burial locations, logistics such as when it will be done and how to get everyone there. The last thing they may think about is how to send off their loved one with meaning. The irony is that the following days after the funeral when they reflect and talk to each other asking “How Was The Funeral”? The first thing they will talk about is the ceremony and how it made them feel. Followed by how did it truly reflect on the life and relationships of the person who died. Did the ceremony say I lived, I mattered, and I cared! That is where the real value of using Celebrants will reflect a positive light on your funeral bussiness.
Who can become a funeral celebrant?
Virtually anyone can become a funeral celebrant, even a licensed funeral director. Grief counselors, hospice care providers, and social workers may have a natural calling to become Celebrants. Member of the clergy are also naturals. The main reason people become funeral celebrants is that they found they have a calling to help assist people to mark or celebrate the important moments in life of the family member who has passed on. Women are far more often drawn to the profession.
Is there a license to become a funeral celebrant?
No, there is no license, but the funeral celebrants receive training to write and perform the celebration properly and they may even receive certification to indicate their training, but there is no government oversight or regulation. Often Celebrants are also trained in other life events as well, such as births, weddings, divorce and life transitions.
Funeral celebrants come from different walks of life. The may have experienced a traditional funeral and left feeling like something was missing and thought to themselves there must be a better way to say goodbye. They may then search for this better way and ultimately learn about becoming a Funeral Celebrant.
For example, hospice providers are present during the final months of a person’s life. They may listen to the stories of the patient’s life from the patient, their family members, and close friends. When the patient passes away, the loved ones enter a period of sadness and grief, with brief periods of levity caused by the memories of the deceased.
This is a light-bulb moment! They found laughter and joy even in their time of grief! The hospice care provider realizes this is what was missing at the funerals she attended in the past. The patient lived a long, loving and heroic life, why not celebrate who he was at the funeral so that the ones left behind can feel that love and joy as they send them off into the next stage of life! Thus a Funeral Celebrant is born.
What can this mean to your funeral home business?
Typical Response of a Funeral Director on Using Celebrants!
When a family comes to you establishment and you can provide them with much more than a simple tradition and find out how the family really wants to remember them. You can then use the skills of a Funeral Celebrant to create a lovely and memorable celebration that will help sad grieving family and friends leave with love and joy in their hearts.
What does this mean to you? Those who experience a true celebration at a funeral often remark to their families that is how they want their funeral to be when they go. This has proven to increase the public’s desire to pre-arrange funerals. You can setup everything needed for the celebration ahead of time to avoid rushing about and missing important details.
Costs for Funeral Celebrants vary depending on what is needed for the celebration but expect it to cost twice as much as a typical clergy donation. This is mainly because of the simple fact that Celebrants put in much more time and on average take 10 – 12 hours just to interview and write the ceremony. The extra time and effort will show in the quality of a more personalized funeral. Extras may include a Life Celebration Video of the deceased or specific music or even props present at the funeral. The writer may not necessarily be the speaker, so that may be a separate fee. Conversely, the writer may be the speaker, so they may charge a flat fee for the complete service or separate fees for each aspect of the celebration.
Your funeral home is a business that celebrates life.
In every town or city there are several funeral homes. Most are traditional ones that perform the basics. Your funeral home can be the one that stands out as more progressive and truly knows how to celebrate life. When a family loses someone they love, they will look to you to help them. Celebrants are trained to work with funeral directors and consider it their job to shine a positive light on the funeral home the hires them. Your relationship with your Celebrant will grow and you may find new ways to use their services, such as a public holiday service of remembrance or the opening of a new business. They want you to call them again and again so be sure to explain your special needs and likes.
Traditional funerals often do not satisfy people.
In the current social environment there are many people who do not define themselves as religious, thus they may prefer to keep religion out of the funeral service. Instead they may prefer to celebrate the life of the deceased live with stories, music, and videos. They may want to share funny or poignant stories that show who they were in life. Grieving family members may ask for certain songs to be played instead of hymns, certain poetry recited rather than psalms.
A funeral celebrant understands these different expectations and can help you provide these services for your clients. Your job is to help the living say goodbye to the deceased the way they wish to say it. The difference here is that the funeral is planned and arranged with minute detail. A funeral celebration is a calming balm to the soul in a time of loss and sadness to lift the hearts into love and joy. We encourage you to learn more about Celebrants for your funeral home to take your business to the next level. You can keep up with the current social atmosphere that prefers to celebrate life instead of mourn death. Celebrants are here to help you help your clients say goodbye the way they want to say it: with meaning, with words, with love, and with joy so that they will come back again to your funeral home when they need to say goodbye to another loved one.
To locate a Certified Celebrant in your area you can check out the Celebrant Foundation and Institute www.celebrantinstitute.org or call #973-746-1792
To hire a Celebrant online to write but not perform a ceremony check out our Funeral-Writing-Services.
Jeff Staab is a Vermont based funeral director and Certified Life Cycle Celebrant. He can be reached at #877-365-9474 or info@cremationsolutions.com
flower stems that are truly breathtaking memorials. In the end, we want you to choose the style that is right for you and your family. We also feature mahogany bases that are outfitted with LED lights—perfect for displaying your custom art glass memorial.
