CREMATION OPTIONS

Cremation jewelry was designed as a miniature cremation urn with a hollow chamber to hold a bit of ashes from a loved one’s cremation. The original idea was to allow one or more family members to keep a physical part of their loved one close at heart, regardless of how the rest of the cremated remains would be disposed of or how many family members wanted to share the ashes. The ash pendant could then be worn as an urn pendant or displayed beneath a jeweler’s glass dome to create a personal memorial.

For any number of reasons, however, jewelry for ashes doesn’t appeal to some people. Some are opposed to cremation in general, while others just don’t like the idea of reserving cremated remains in the form of jewelry. Perhaps you belong to a church that prohibits the practice of cremation, or maybe your religion has strict rules about the disposition of ashes. Even so, cremation jewelry still affords an opportunity to honor your loved one in a unique and personal way.

Cremation jewelry isn’t just jewelry for ashes. The hollow chamber in every urn pendant can accommodate any small keepsake to remind you of your loved one. Following are some of the mementoes people choose to save in their cremation necklaces.

A Lock of Hair
A lock of a loved one’s hair is a special keepsake indeed. If you’re a parent, you may have kept a snip of hair from your child’s first haircut to remind you of the tiny baby you once held in your arms. And lovers throughout history have kept wisps of each other’s hair to help them feel close when they were apart. The hair of fallen soldiers was fashioned into the memorial jewelry that was popular during the Civil War. Place a lock of your loved one’s hair in your urn pendant for safekeeping.

Soil
The time-honored practice of “paying respects” to a deceased loved one with regular visits to his or her grave is less common today, as fewer and fewer family members are centrally located in the home town. Whether you live near your loved one’s burial place or far away, you can use your cremation jewelry to save a few grains of earth from the grave site.

Funeral Flowers
The outpouring of sympathy following the death of a loved one often includes floral gifts in a variety of colors, species, and arrangements. Flowers are a fragrant reminder of the nature of life - rich, beautiful, and fleeting. By drying some of the flowers after the funeral, you can preserve their colorful beauty. Once the flowers are dry, you can crumble a pinch of the petals into the chamber of your cremation keepsake pendant.

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Remember, Cremation Options is here to help you all day, every day with your funeral and cremation needs. We’re open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. To contact us, simply call 1-877-989-9090. At any time of day or night, you will be able to speak with one of our trained, sympathetic and understanding representatives.

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After the last casserole dish has been delivered, after friends and family have gone their way, the grief you feel because the one you love has died becomes very real. The hard work of grief begins now, as you face the difficult tasks of rebuilding your life, finding a new or at least different direction, and filling the void of losing a loved one. But these are helpful gifts you can give yourself.

Working Your Way Through

Perhaps the notion of “giving yourself gifts” while grieving sounds selfish. But when we are experiencing great emotional pain such as grief brings our ability to be kind, patient, and generous with ourselves is very important-and often the last thing we think of doing. Many faith traditions teach a version of the Great Commandment which is to love your neighbor as yourself.

Take Care Of Yourself And Allow Others To Take Care Of You

Those wonderful casserole dishes that others baked with love are concrete reminders to take care of your physical body. Grief takes its toll on your health and wellness. Remember to take care of your basic need for eating healthy and balanced meals, exercising and sleeping well. When others ask what they can do for you, don’t hesitate to accept their gifts to you. Most people sincerely want to help, if given the opportunity. My aunt Nancy a recent widow recalls being “truly blessed with help beyond measure when it was so needed,” during the illness and loss of her husband.

Seek Renewed Faith And Spiritual Growth

“Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted,” is a great treasure of wisdom found in Christian scripture. All faiths have stories of grief and loss. These stories serve to tell of god in the lives of people as they face the great pain of grief. Utilize the stories, beliefs, and practices of your faith tradition to assist you in getting through your loss. Many denominations publish daily devotional writings that inspire readers to glean spiritual truths from their teachings. Speak with a clergyperson or a chaplain about your concerns and your need for spiritual direction.

Feel Free To Grieve In Your Own Way

Give yourself permission to grieve in your own way at your own pace—a wise gift. Remember to have patience with yourself and take all the time you need for your grief. Don’t tell yourself you’re supposed to” be feeling or not feeling right now; just allow yourself to feel it. Pat Royalty a writer and friend from church who lost her son received a wonderful brochure on grief that she says she “took to heart.” The brochure recommended not comparing experiences of grief, advice Pat found to be “very good and helpful.” It enabled her to grieve freely without feeling pressured by external expectations.

Share Your Loss

Sharing the losses-telling your grief story or expressing the feelings in writing or other creative endeavors-is an important gift in the healing process, even if at times painful. There is no more holy and sacred act than to be open and honest with others, particularly about loss. Our feelings about loss are gifts from god to remind us of our humanity. Please give yourself the gift of expressing your feelings. My Aunt Edna a retired nurse and recent widow, says that her grief journey became comforting through sharing. “My friends and family allowed me to share how special my husband was in all of their lives. Because we share favorite memories and stories he lives on in our lives. “Our grief always brings a gift. It’s the gift of greater sensitivity and compassion for others.”

Ask For Help

The popular television show The Wonder Years focused on the importance of friendship, particularly during all the changes and stresses of adolescence. The show’s theme song, by the Beatles, spoke of “getting by with a little help from my friends.” Sometimes however you may need more support than friends can provide. An abundance of grief books and seminars, pastoral counselors and support groups specialize in the process of grief and recovery. Pat reports that materials she received from her local chapter of a grief support network were most helpful after her son’s death.

Find Quiet Time To Be Alone

As a retired nurse, Aunt Edna knew the importance of time in healing physical wounds. In speaking of her grief journey she found the gift of quiet time alone to be very important in healing and recovery. Following her husband’s death, well meaning family and friends came by, invited her out and kept her busy. Though she treasured the love and caring support this represented she also wanted time alone to reflect on her life with her husband. She read scripture and prayed and found comfort in the Psalmist’s words that “weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning” (Psalm 30:5). She also re-read the cards and notes she had received, finding strength in the love and understanding, expressed by so many friends and loved ones. In her moments of quiet, she found strength to look to the future and imagine different ways of life.

Remember Your Loved One In A Meaningful Memorial

Memories are one way those whom we have lost to death live on in our lives. A memorial might be as simple as a keepsake book with photos of favorite occasions that you shared: it might also be a place you visit, or a new tradition. The simple and elegant Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. has provided a place for many persons to heal as well as remember their losses. You can create your own private memorial in your garden or at a favorite public spot. My grieving aunts created memorials after their husbands’ recent deaths. Though each one is different, both reflect their deceased husbands’ practice of faith and keep the love and memories alive.

Allow Others To Be There For You

Pat spoke of the need to get outside, resume social activities and allow others to be there for her. Early on in her grief journey, she made a commitment to accept every invitation offered by caring friends and family. She knew it would be all too easy for her to say no and thus isolate herself from others. The caring presence of another-as they hold your hand, offer a hug, or simply acknowledge your loss-can come to you as a great gift that helps you embrace your grief.

Be Open To New Possibilities

Though grief is painful, it can become a unique opportunity for self-discovery and personal growth. The process involves reorganization and transformation of the world as we have known it. You can utilize a variety of strategies and practices, but the result often is that a new chapter is written in life. Aunt Nancy describes it as the practice of “trying to embrace what god has for me here.” Embracing the gift of life as gift, with a grateful heart, “means looking forward to tomorrow as well as embracing each day for what it holds,” she says.

Think About Healing As A Gift

Like life itself healing from grief is a gift. Yet no matter how resourceful we are healing and recovery are shrouded in mystery. Imagine receiving the gift of healing as you would accept other gifts-with hands stretched outward with surprise and heartfelt gratitude.

Take Heart

Loss and death often seem senseless but they are not the last word. New life comes from the greatest disappointments. Grieving is painful. We embrace the pain until we are able to let it go. It is at that place with nothing in our hands that more good gifts will come our way.

If you or a family member have any further questions or concerns with respect to cremation, cremation services, cremation costs or a direct cremation please feel free to contact Cremation Options toll free 24 hours daily at 1-877-989-9090.

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Driving to the funeral home to make the arrangements after my mother’s death I was struck by the thought: Now I can finally talk to you again. I felt a surge of joy. My mother who was my best friend for 40 years had slipped into the agitated confused world of Alzheimer’s disease the last five years of her life and had left me without her companionship, conversation and wise counsel. Yet within 24 hours if her death, I realized we could carry on our relationship where we’d left off, albeit in an altered state. Chalk it up to the mystery of faith or one of the inexplicable goings-on after the death of a parent but I felt extremely comforted and began telling my mother how much I’d missed her, how she didn’t deserve to die the way she did, and how I hoped she’d keep an eye on her granddaughter Hannah.

Working Your Way Through

Losing a parent is one of the most difficult things adult children live through. Everyone grieves differently -uniquely-and your reactions and those of other family members may surprise you. Sorrow, relief, intense gratitude, nostalgia, resentment, anger and sustained sadness are not uncommon emotions in the course of your mourning. You don’t want to run from any of these feelings but certain things you can do may bring you consolation.

Honor Your Parent

Storytelling is a most ancient form of honoring the dead. The traditional Christian funeral provides three opportunities for the bereaved to speak of the deceased: at the wake, the funeral service, and the graveside. You can continue to create opportunities for sharing and storytelling, at a reception following the funeral and at family gatherings and memorial services in the years to come. Keep a journal or record your memories to share with family and friends. They will no doubt make corrections and additions to your recollections, which will cause lots of lively discussion. Encourage others to tell their stories. You’ll learn things about your mother or father you never knew—stories of charitable acts, courageous deeds, and displays of very human strengths and weaknesses that made this person unique among the billions that came before him or her. Another way to share your deceased parent’s legacy is in naming children. For the rest of their lives, those children will still be passing on part of the history of their namesake. Offering charitable gifts and donations in your parent’s name, dedicating your work to them, or acknowledging them in some other way can also be a deeply satisfying way to keep your mother or father’s memory alive.

Change Routines Or Create New Traditions

The holidays, family vacations, anniversaries or birthdays punctuate the absence of a parent, particularly in the first years after his or her death. Changing past routines or establishing new traditions can ease the transition. When their father died my cousins asked if they could spend the coming Thanksgiving holiday with our family something they had never done in the past because they dreaded the thought of their father’s empty place at the head of the table and they wanted to be with other family members on that special day. On my father’s birthday the first year after his death, my sisters and I went out to dinner with an aunt and uncle and had them tell us stories about Dad’s childhood. Many of the tales we’d heard before but everyone was buoyed by the reminiscing. “There is no greater way to honor one who gave you life than to live a happy and full life in return.” The death of a parent can also be the catalyst for changes in lifestyle and carets. Thoughts of your own mortality are not uncommon when a parent dies, and can cause you to rethink the way you want to live the rest of your life. After the death of his beloved mother, a friend of mine decided the time was right to take a job with Habitat for Humanity and move to Romania for a year. Take caution, however. It is not always wise to make major life decisions while you’re mourning the death of a loved one. Sometimes marriage breakups and job changes-later regretted-are initiated following the death of a parent. Give yourself time to work through your grief before making those kinds of decisions.

Inherit Your Parent’s Riches

When a parent dies a part of you seems to die with them. You realize that you’ve lost something you can never replace, and that causes great sadness. But it is possible to retrieve and even recreate the person in small ways by trying to capture their spirit in the way you live. Keep in mind your parent’s best traits (he was generous; she was a good listener; he stood by his convictions; she always held out hope; and so on). Think of these traits as your inheritance and put them to good use. My sister sets a good example: she became very conscientious about attending wakes and funerals after the death of my dad-an Irishman and natural born wake-goer. “Dad would want one of us to be there,” she said recently when an old family friend died in California 2,000 miles away from our home. She flew out the next day and served as our family’s representative at the memorial mass.

Find Ways To Reconcile

Many children experience deep regret after a parent dies. Parent-child relationships often get very messy, particularly during the teen and young adult years. If a parent dies before you’ve had the chance to sort through some of the unrealistic expectations you had for each other, you may feel you weren’t given the chance to make amends. Due to circumstances in your relationship with your parent, you may have felt robbed of the opportunity to express some anger, hurt or confusion you believe he or she caused you. Communicating with the person through prayer or expressing your thoughts in a journal may help you bring closure to your painful feelings and offer forgiveness and may bring you peace. Often adult children feel remorse for not being more loving and attentive. “I should have gone to visit my mother more,” a daughter might say. A son might lament that he used a sharp or impatient tone with his infirm parent. Trust that your parent knows and always knew the good in you. Forgive yourself just as surely as they would forgive you. Then “pay it forward” as a recent book and movie put it and reconnect with others in memory of your deceased parent.

Don’t Be Ashamed Of The Relief You Feel

For countless reasons-a parent’s long illness, incapacitated state, depression or terrible loneliness-you may feel an undeniable measure of relief when your mother or father’s death comes. You may find your mixed emotions confusing and even shameful. But the relief you feel is an acknowledgement that no one should suffer endlessly and it is a sentiment you no doubt heard your parent express on a number of occasions.

Follow Your Parent’s Wishes

Many parents ask their children not to mourn them when they’re gone. You may be craving everyday routine, social gatherings, laughter and relaxation-all of which may seem inappropriate during your period of mourning. But they are vital to your healing and well being. There is in fact no greater way to honor one who gave you life than to live a happy and full life in return.

Take Heart

As a child suffering the loss of a parent your first and most essential step toward feeling whole again is to be grateful for the gift of life that was given to you by the person now gone. You can continue to draw on your parent’s guidance and learn from their examples-both good and bad. Continue to love the person, love them all the more, love them with your whole heart, and remember this person’s love for you. That love never dies.

If you or a family member have any further questions or concerns with respect to cremation, cremation services, cremation costs or a direct cremation please feel free to contact Cremation Options toll free 24 hours daily at 1-877-989-9090.

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In terms of its longevity, aftercare could be considered a newcomer to funeral service. In the past, it was not officially considered an integral part of the profession, and even today there are more funeral homes not offering aftercare then offering it to families. Aftercare has been an integral part of other deathcare-related professions, however, specifically hospice and organ and tissue donation agencies. There was never a debate within these professions as to whether it should be part of the system. In funeral service, a number of aftercare options are available to funeral homes, ranging from the simplest and least expensive option-supplying families with grief support referral information-to the most involved option-providing grief counseling through the funeral home. Other options can include phone calls, personal visits to families, or sending grief literature to them at significant time intervals. This article explores one option that might prove helpful to grieving families while also good for the image of funeral directors. Ralph Klicker discusses the idea from a funeral service perspective, and Maggie Campbell explains how two allied agencies integrate aftercare into their helping model.

Ralph Klicker

I recently attended a funeral director seminar during which the speaker talked about the future of funeral series and painted a not-so-rosy picture. He spoke about the need for funeral directors to change and to do the proverbial “think-out-of-the-box” scenario. As often happens at seminars I agreed to disagreed with some of the predictions and suggestions. As a seminar leader myself, I probably would have taken a more positive, “glass-half-full-not-half-empty-approach,” but I still left with many good ideas. One suggestion the speaker offered was for funeral homes to contact each family they serve before the first anniversary of their loved one’s death and offer the option of a one-year memorial service, to be held at the funeral home or another location. The seminar presenter felt this might not only help families but might also help funeral homes financially through the fees charged to handle the service. Not all attendees thought this was a great idea, however, and some pointed out that the family already had a service (hopefully with the body present) and wondered what good another service would do a year later. Others even suggested that this might cause more pain for the family by bringing grief back to the surface after they had a year to adjust. Personally and professionally, I think this is a good idea because for many grievers, a first anniversary service can serve as a type of milestone. The first year following a death can produce a sea of conflicting emotions. As those who grieve struggle to cope with the fact that their loved ones are no longer with them certain naturally occurring events make it an even more difficult time. First the shock of the death subsides and a harsh realization hits them: their loved one begins just as the griever’s support group of friends and family members to on with their own lives. Sometimes those closest to the griever expect him or her to do the same. Next, 12 months of special days without the deceased occurs for the first time, including birthdays, holidays and special events. Practical stressors also need attention such as disposing of the deceased’s clothing, belongings or toys. Learning to cook, pay the bills, fix broken things, the pressure to move or financial difficulties also adds to the pain and frustration of these 12 months. At the end of this turbulent first year, an anniversary ceremony can provide for some not only a tribute to the deceased but also a new starting point. This does not mean that their grief has ended after 12 months; it simply provides an opportunity to put this turbulent “year of firsts” behind them and take the next steps in the grieving process. A first year anniversary ritual can provide them with another helpful step in their difficult journey. For advice on how other deathcare providers view first year ceremonies, I approached Maggie Campbell, M.S. who serves as a manager of family support at Upstate New York Transplant Services, Inc., in Buffalo, New York. She also has experience as a grief counselor at hospice.

Maggie Campbell

All organ procurement organizations, tissue and eye banks, and hospice organizations offer aftercare programs for the families of the deceased they serve. Those of us working professionally with organ-tissue and eye donor families recognize that they have fairly specific needs, especially during the first year following the death. Most donor families are interested in knowing about the recovery of their loved one’s organs, tissues or eyes, so we provide as much follow-up information as we can. Hospice organizations provide aftercare or bereavement programs for families and friends of the deceased. Through a series of mailings and follow-up phone calls during the first year, hospice social workers or counselors check with families periodically and provide written materials to help the bereaved understand grief and loss. Most hospices also offer bereavement services to the general community in the form of grief support groups, counseling, and grief and loss workshops. In working with bereaved families, I have found that many families possess a strong need to memorialize their loved ones, even after a year. One of their greatest fears seems to be that their loved ones will be forgotten, so aftercare programs accommodate this need to remember. For example all procurement agencies and hospices hold yearly remembrance events. Within the donation field, families and donors are honored at donor recognition ceremonies each year, which offer us a chance to thank families for their unselfish choice of donation. These events are well received by families, especially if they involve videotapes of donors’ pictures and the presentation of tokens of appreciation from the procurement organization. As a procurement organization, we need to thank families, and we believe yearly remembrance events help them adjust to their losses. We find in performing aftercare with families that donor families become some of our best advocates for donation provided they had a positive experience with us. They appreciate that we do not “drop them” after they have donated, but rather keep in touch and offer on-going services. We believe that donation can be the positive aspect of a sad experience for people whose loved ones have died, and the recognizing their contributions through memorial events helps them during their grief by honoring their loved ones. By holding a first-year anniversary service at the funeral home, families have the chance to again share their grief, which most grievers still feel even a year after the death-especially around the anniversary of the death.

Ralph Klicker

An anniversary service is really a type of aftercare service for the funeral home to offer to families. Even if the funeral home does not provide any other traditional aftercare services, this event falls into the category. One thing that research in the field has shown is that providing aftercare services enhances your image within the eyes of the families you serve. This is an opportunity to show families that you care about them for longer than just two or three days. It gets them talking to their friends and family about your caring attitude. You differentiate yourself from competitors that do not offer any type of aftercare. From a practical perspective, if families and friends attend an anniversary service, they will probably not even think about the fact that you might be receiving a fee for the use of your facility and your organizational skills. Instead what they will see is a funeral home honoring the memory of deceased clients and providing a valuable and compassionate service to families. This is a win-win situation. The family wins by being helped and you win by enhancing your image in the community. Not all of the families you serve will take advantage of this opportunity but for those that do, you will provide a therapeutic ritual that is helpful in the grieving process and reinforces the importance of memorializing and remembering the deceased.

If you or a family member have any further questions or concerns with respect to cremation, cremation services, cremation costs or a direct cremation please feel free to contact Cremation Options toll free 24 hours daily at 1-877-989-9090.

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There is so much I can’t and don’t want to forget about the losses in my life. My father comes to mind first. A man of 70 years he died on Father’s day in 1985. Recently I was rereading one of my favorite books, Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, and I came upon the simple line: “the old man had taught the boy to fish and the boy loved him.” Strong and cherished feelings and memories about my father arose inside of me. My dad may never have taught me much about the fine arts and sciences, but he did teach this boy to fish. And I loved him. Only a month before Dad died. I asked him to help me carve some “figure-four triggers” for a simple rabbit trap like the ones he and I used to set when I was a youngster. I wanted to share this quaint little contraption with my own children, even if we were only to enjoy the thrill of seeing life up close and then setting the trapped animal free. I also wanted to give my children an experience of what it was like in my father’s time, when families hunted and trapped for food. As he and I got started on the project, Dad winced with the pain of his illness as he carved the trigger sticks. Yet the whole time he knew just what we were up to together: we were making and preserving precious memories; somehow trying to immortalize what he and I had enjoyed together years earlier, what he and his father had enjoyed years before that.

Working Your Way Through

Memories are personal. Whether it’s simply speaking the name of your beloved one, holding a ceremony to honor his or her memory or revisiting a favorite place or activity you shared, the key is to make and preserve connections. Here are a few ideas-my own as well as borrowed ones-to help you strengthen cherished connections with someone you have loved and continue to love.

Don’t Hide The Hardship

Loss is painful-that’s no secret. Memories too can be painful, “but you need to tell your story,” says Charlotte Hrubes, co-founder of Joyful Again, a recovery program for widows and widowers. She urges people not to hide the hardships of their losses, but to share them in a group. “You need to be real somewhere, because other people in your life will probably avoid talking about it. At support groups you can share your feelings…it helps to hear others express the same feelings you’ve been wrestling with. People who sign up for our sessions invariably tell us, ‘no one can have ever felt this much pain.’ But then they hear others say the same thing in the group…They gain the strength of realizing they are normal.” Being “normal” means wanting validation for a full range of feelings that loss brings. For example it is normal for even your closet friends and relatives (and yes you yourself, too) not to speak the name of the one you’ve loved and lost. Somehow we have it within our power to pretend that someone we loved deeply and intimately must never have even existed. When my sister begins to talk about our mother, who has died, I answer back that my little Patrick sure is growing up quickly. If my wife happens to mention the miscarriage we experienced just two months before my father’s death, I’m quick to end the conversation and hide the hardship. Some parts of grief have to be let out. Our grief needs to be observed by others. Says Donna O’Toole a noted grief author, publisher and teacher: “Grieving our losses does not disconnect us from life but rather, like invisible threads, the losses of our lives weave life unto life.” The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.

Don’t Hide The Hope And The Joy

It is also no secret that love is stronger than death. That is something to celebrate. Ask any of those who have loved and lost and have begun to heal. They remember the death, but they remember the love more. And their fondest wish is that their loved ones now be at peace, in place of joy. For me at this time in my life, I have a clear hope in such an outcome after death. But I’m also ready to acknowledge that for many people there is much mystery and doubt about it all. Arie Brouwer was a theologian who served as General Secretary of the National Council of Churches. He died in 1993. Seeing his death coming, he spoke of faith and hope as mysterious yet very real. He said, “This experience of hope in spite of everything. However mysterious I am profusely grateful for both.” We too must learn to remain grateful for the love and joy we not only shared with our loved ones but may still be blessed with through our memories of them an our hopes for them. If your belief system gives you the added comfort, joy and trust that all is well with your loved one now in paradise, indeed that is a further blessing to celebrate. If you struggle with doubts and fears talking with a trusted friend, counselor or minister may be of comfort and help.

Keep Your Loved One’s Finest Qualities Alive

This can be your ongoing gift to the one you love and his or her ongoing gift to the world. At the burial rite for my father, friends and family were solemnly filing by the casket, giving a final blessing. Some stopped to offer a handshake, a hug, or a word of comfort to our grieving family. “There will never be another one like him,” I offered to one of my dearest friends. Her response was a simple: “you’re just like him.” I’ve never forgotten those beautiful, spontaneous words. And I try to live by them, difficult as it is for me. “Imitation is the highest form of flattery,” goes the saying. The greatest lessons our loved ones have taught us can be beautifully and repeatedly shared. We pay great honor to our loved one’s finest qualities by trying to live and act on them in and through your own live. You knew your loved one well. Ask yourself: what were the special traits and virtues you learned from her or him that you can help perpetuate by actively developing and sharing them? The world needs all it can get of the good and unique things you loved one possessed and shared. These traits now belong to you-and to the ages-if you act to keep them alive. What a tribute and testament! What a gift to the world!

Use Simple Ceremony And Ritual

Ceremony and ritual are especially helpful for remembering our loved ones. “Whenever we experience a transition, happy or sad, a ceremony helps us re-center ourselves by making a symbolic statement about that change,” writes Lynda Paladin in Ceremonies for Charge. Betty Hopf a sister of Providence and a chaplain with a special gift for grief ministry, gives workshops on remembering. “It is more painful to try to forget than to remember,” she says. Here are just a sampling of her ideas and suggestions. Bring a favorite picture of your deceased loved one to a family gathering and explain why it’s special to you, what memories it brings to mind for you. Others often will chime in with their memories. Visit the cemetery as a group and bring a flower that symbolizes some special trait about your loved one. “Mary taught me to stop and smell the roses”; “John brought new life and sunshine to so many.” Invent your own simple rituals, individually or together with family and close friends.

Take Heart

In the Angel Who Forgot, Elisa Barton tells the story of an angel who can heal ailing children. The angel loses his beloved pony in the forest and is so sad he can’t bear to remember it. To stop the hurt the angel throws all his memories away. But now he can’t remember how to help others and cannot heal a young child who needs him. With the help of a wise parent, the angel’s memories are recovered and the angel once again is whole, once again able to heal others. Heal and be healed. Remember.

If you or a family member have any further questions or concerns with respect to cremation, cremation services, cremation costs or a direct cremation please feel free to contact Cremation Options toll free 24 hours daily at 1-877-989-9090.

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