Funeral Advice

The growing expense of funerals is one reason many will look to plan and pay for theirs in advance. If you have ever had to plan a funeral, though, you know that even the basics are expensive.

A funeral today will cost you anywhere between 7,000 and 12,000 dollars, depending on what services you want. At this price, you can expect the viewing plus burial. It will also include basic service fees, transporting the remains to a funeral home, the cost of a casket, embalming, and various preparation services.

Pricing for cremation, while it can be a less expensive option, tends to vary, as well. The average cost can run from 1,000 to 8,000 dollars, depending on location and services. The typical pricing for a funeral with cremation is around 6,000 dollars. Fees for the funeral home have a significant impact on the expense of cremation, so in some cases, it might cost

Money is a huge factor with funeral planning. With the average funeral costing upwards of $10,000, it is not something you’d want to put on a credit card. But in the past, getting accurate pricing used to be a nightmare. The Federal Trade Commission changed that by passing the Funeral Rule. It forced businesses taking advantage of people’s grief to make costs transparent and easy to understand. That way, you receive exactly what you want and nothing you don’t.

What Is the Funeral Rule?

The Funeral Rule holds businesses offering funeral goods and services accountable, by controlling how they set and share price lists or information with potential customers. Specifically, the guidelines tell funeral homes what they must include, and tactics they are not allowed to do.

Funeral and memorial planning is a stressful time for grieving families, especially if your past loved one gave no instruction for their burial. Taking into account families

For millions of people every year, losing a loved one is a nightmare come true. In the midst of the weight of grief, they’re called upon to take care of their loved one’s final affairs and arrange for a fitting tribute. This is the last thing anyone wants to be in charge of with the pressure of perfection and the looming amount of people attending. And yet, this is what many families have to do, on very short notice.

Funeral pre planning is a solution to a stressful situation during a family’s hardest moments. By making some or all of the arrangements in advance, family members worry less about making plans or paying for a person’s final rest. And even better, people can live their last years knowing that they have made these plans for themselves, just the way they want it.

What Is Funeral Pre planning?

A certain kind of eco-friendly cremation is turning into a heated debate. Many professionals in the industry see alkaline hydrolysis as the future of cremation. On the other end of the spectrum, some people want to ban funeral homes from using it. A few organizations dislike cremation in general. They use green cremation as an example of a bad choice. Better knowledge about the process could make it easier to conceive this debate in the midst of a growing interest in using the technology.

Understanding the Process of Green Cremation

Imagine an ice cube melting in a glass of water. Surrounded by a warmer liquid, the solid ice gradually disappears. It is a reasonable metaphor for alkaline hydrolysis. Like ice, the human body needs certain things in order to decompose rapidly. Green cremation involves the placement of the body inside a tank with water and lye. Under a higher temperature and sometimes with pressure, the soft tissues of the body melt. Eventually,

The loss of a mother or child can be a pain that people feel for the rest of their lives. On Mother’s Day, grieving families can experience an increase in sadness. By making space for their grief and finding new traditions, they can celebrate Mother’s Day in a way that keeps their love and memories fresh.

A Mother’s Loss of Her Child

Experiencing the death of a loved one is a difficult time for anyone, but going through the death of a child is something that not everyone has to manage in the course of a lifetime. It can leave bereaved parents feeling like there is a void in their lives that others may not recognize or even acknowledge. Losing children, even when the child is an adult, represents for many mothers a loss of the future. In the years to come, they often wonder what the child would be like if they were still alive. Mothers who lose a child may question their status as a parent, especially if their only child died. They may wonder if it is still

People might think that cremation has been an easy choice forever. The truth is more complicated. Cremation has a long and winding history in North America. It grew at a slow pace. Then, in just a handful of decades, it exploded into the most popular choice today.

Burial Traditions Among Native American Peoples

Trying to figure out the beliefs of thousands of distinct groups seems impossible. People develop their own traditions over hundreds or thousands of years, if no one tells them what to do. That means a wide range of experiences will emerge. In some parts of the world, cremation was a widely-used practice for thousands of years. North America was different. Hundreds of native peoples made their world across the large continent. All these people had their own ways. Some archaeologists claim that cremation in North America was rare until recently. In 2008, researchers found an ancient cremation site off the coast of Georgia. This was quite unexpected.

For an increasing number of people, the decision to cremate is simple. What they may or may not do with the ashes is a different matter entirely. While traditional burial is fairly straightforward, cremation opens up a world of choices for people planning for the future and their families. This decision comes with a variety of new concerns to address. By looking at the legal, religious and moral ramifications surrounding cremation, families can make the best selections for them and their loved ones' final wishes.

Legal Considerations

As a chaplain, my role is not to mandate religious doctrine, force individuals into specific choices or even advocate a particular lifestyle or worldview. Rather, the focus of chaplaincy care tends to be on facilitating the ability of individuals to articulate their own goals and values, and helping them uncover, navigate, translate and resolve some of the issues with which they might be struggling. People often ask me for guidance when confronted with the choice of cremation, as there is often religious guilt or complicated family tension associated with this decision. I know many people who have chosen cremation and are very comfortable with their choice. I also do not think that it

Updated on 11/13/20

This article covers six different ways to scatter or bury ashes, including casting, burial in a trench, raking, scattering over water, aerial scattering and green burial.

Although there are certainly rules and laws regulating the disposition of ashes on land, water or in the air, your choices are largely left up to your own discretion. 

These ideas for scattering and burial ceremonies