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A eulogy is a speech praising the life of someone who has passed away. Writing a eulogy is an opportunity to reflect on the life of the deceased, accept the loss, and think of him or her in a way that you will always remember. It’s no wonder why some people write in celebration of the person’s life, highlighting the achievements and characteristics that made them truly unique in this world.
If the deceased was funny or a jokester, you may be considering incorporating humor into the eulogy. This is completely acceptable, and often times a great way to truly honor the person they were. However, for as much as a eulogy is to honor the deceased, it is to comfort the family and attendees, so when preparing, you must remember to keep your speech appropriate, and consider the emotions and reactions of the people in attendance..
As in the writing of any eulogy, take hold of your emotions and follow the flow of your heart and perception of that person in your mind. Remember the good times, and place priority on the stories that showcase only the best attributes of the deceased.
A eulogy is something special, and it is truly an honor to be asked to deliver one. Keep in mind that you were most likely selected because you were viewed as a person who had a special relationship with the deceased, and can now offer a unique insight into who they were, what was important to them, and how they lived. If humor was a big part of their life, then incorporating it into the eulogy, whether through anecdote or personal recollection, is completely appropriate and should be considered. A eulogy, at its essence, is about how the person has touched your life. If they brought joy and humor to your life, it was probably the case for many others, and comfort (and perhaps a good laugh) will be found through your words.
Being diagnosed with a terminal illness can be very frieghtening and difficult not only for the person diagnosed, but also for surrounding family and close friends.
Often times, loved ones try to stay strong for the sake of the individual that was diagnosed, but it’s important that everyone deals with their emotions and are open with one another about their feelings.
The struggle to accept that time is limited, comes with many emotions. It’s very common to be angry and frustrated. Feelings of fear and denial may also arise. It’s important to be there emotionally and spiritually for your loved one, inviting them to share their fears and explore what life still has to offer.
It’s essential to support your loved one in every way possible. Help him or her in dealing with the situation by offering a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on and compassion to help in times of grief and sadness. Being there and listening are truly the things that your loved one will need most.
And also don’t forget to deal with your own emotions throughout the process. Lean on someone that you are close to and let them help you cope with the situation. This is truly a time to come together with compassion and share your feelings.
A military funeral is a distinct memorial service afforded to veterans, soldiers, marines, and other military notables. There are elements known as funeral honors that may be incorporated into the funeral service, if the family of the deceased should choose so.
Funeral honors:
- Draping of the American Flag on the casket: The blue section of the flag is always placed at the head of the casket, over the left shoulder of the deceased. This custom started in the late 18th century, when a flag was used to cover the body as it was taken from the battlefield.
- Flag folding: The flag folding ceremony represents the principles of which our country was originally founded. Each fold is a symbol, starting with the symbol of life.
- Performance of Taps: Taps is often played at the conclusion of a military funeral using a single bugle, performed by a buglar or a recording of one.
- 3-volley salute: The salute of three volleys came from an old battlefield custom. While at war, the two sides would cease fire to clear their fallen soldiers from the battlefield. Firing three volleys was to notify the other side that the deceased bodies had been properly cared for and they were ready to resume the battle.
Other Funeral Honors may be included in the funeral for high-ranking officers, such as full Colonel and above.
- The presence of a rider-less horse: By tradition, the rider-less horse follows the casket. It is a symbol of a fallen leader, a warrior who would ride no more.
- An escort military band and platoon may be present at the funeral of a high-ranking officer.
- Aerial flyover: This is typically done with fighter jets in missing man formation.
- A horse-drawn caisson: The caisson holds the body of the deceased and is pulled by horses that are all saddled, with riders only on the horses thar are on the left side of the caisson. This tradition has evolved from when horse-drawn caissons moved artillery ammunition and cannon. Riderless horses carried provisions.
Military funeral service guidelines were established and are governed by the Department of Veterans Affairs. All Veterans are eligible to receive this honor, with the exception of those who have been indicted for a capital crime or discharged dishonorably. If you would like to check if you or a loved one qualifies for a military funeral, you should contact the Department of Veterans Affairs, or visit the following website: http://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records.
Most funeral directors, including all of ours, are familiar with this type of funeral service and know the procedures regarding arranging for honor guards, national cemetery burials, and other elements of a military funeral. In fact, we pride ourselves in making sure vets and their families can take full advantage of the financial and recognition benefits provided by the VA at no charge to the family.
When you die, it is fairly obvious that your family and friends will find coping with the associated grief and loss very difficult. Coupled with that is the fact that approximately 70% of people who die today don’t even have a will drafted to assist their family and loved ones, and over 85% of people do not share what they have in mind for their end-of-life preferences at all.
With that in mind, one of the most loving acts you can do is to pre-arrange and pre-pay your funeral plans, so that you can minimize the emotional and financial distress associated with an unplanned funeral.
1. Pre-planning gives you total control over your funeral
Advanced planning gives you decision making power over almost every detail at your service. You can pick and choose services exactly the way you want them. Detailing your last wishes ensures that your remains are handled as you wish them to be.
2. Pre-planning takes the guesswork and accompanying stress from your family
Most people have no idea how to get started planning a funeral, so pre-planning your burial or cremation arrangements is a tremendous opportunity to minimize the pressures on the family you leave behind. A structured preplan also can reduce (or eliminate) disputes among your family members as they will know exactly what to do.
3. Pre-planning lets your family focus on healing from their grief
Because your pre-planned funeral is already taken care of, the extra time lets your family work through their grief and loss, notify other loved ones, and write your eulogy among other things. And if your family isn’t rushed planning your arrangements, it gives them more time to plan a truly personalized memorial service to celebrate your memory.
4. Pre-planning gives you peace of mind
When all the details of your funeral are planned in advance, it can give you great peace of mind know you have created a comprehensive end-of-life plan.
5. Pre-paying your pre-planed makes financial sense
By prepaying your funeral, you lock in your services and merchandise at today’s prices, hedging against inflation.
We are experts in preplanning, and over the last 100+ years, and we have helped thousands of families pre-arrange and pre-pay their funerals so they have peace of mind knowing that that when the time comes, everything is all taken care of.
What is a green burial?
A green burial is done with the goal of returning the body to the earth so that it can be naturally recycled through uninhibited decomposition; green burials are intended as economically sustainable alternatives to traditional funeral practices. In most cases, the body is not embalmed and is placed in a biodegradable container (for example, willow), then interred directly in a grave without a concrete liner.
The first green cemetery, Ramsey Creek, was opened in 1998 by Billy Campbell in South Carolina. Since then, an emerging new movement for simpler, more environmentally friendly has resulted in a variety of alternatives to traditional funeral practices.
Cremation is also considered a type of green burial, because although energy is consumed to burn the body, its footprint is so small and its byproducts so marginal that it is generally accepted as a green burial practice.
Why a green burial?
There are over 22,000 cemeteries in the United States alone, and each year we bury the following with our traditional funeral practices:
Caskets – 30 million feet of hardwood, 90,272 tons of steel, and 2,700 tons of copper/bronze.
Vaults – 14,000 tons of steel and 1,636,000 tons of reinforced concrete
Embalming fluid – 827,060 gallons
Clearly, over time these practices will prove to be unsustainable as more and more land is consumed to create cemeteries and more and more of material resources, such as woods and metals are buried in the ground along with our dead.
Cost is also a factor, considering the average cost for a traditional funeral is approximately $6500 to $8000. Green burials cost substantially less, especially if the body is to be cremated and the family decides spreads the ashes spread instead of interring the body. We have the only green burial offering in the state of New Hampshire that approved by the Green Burial Council.
Are There Green Alternatives to Interment?
In addition to simple interment or cremation, there are a number of creative alternatives for cremated remains as well. For example, one company, Celestis, can send a lipstick-sized container of cremated remains into space. They offer several choices for the containers, including orbit with return, release into the orbit, lunar release, or release into deep space.
Eternal Reefs incorporates cremated remains into an environmentally safe cement mixture, using the mixture to create artificial reef formations that support new marine habitats for fish and other sea creatures. They have placed over 300 memorial reefs throughout the east coast and expect them to last approximately 500 years.
The Future of Green Burials
As the green burial movement continues to gain popularity, there are more and more green cemeteries appearing in the United States. Since 1998, the number of green cemeteries has gone from 1 to 12, operating in 10 states with 4 more are under development. We have seen an exponential increase over the last few years in green burials at our facilities, so it is certainly clear to us that the green burial movement is here to stay.
In October, Wal-Mart began selling caskets on its website (see fox new story at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,570111,00.html). What this will mean for family-owned funeral homes long term is unknown. But my sense is that most grieving families will not turn to Wal-Mart for their casket needs. While retail outlets selling caskets in lieu of local funeral homes sounds like big news, it’s really nothing new. Costco has been selling caskets in a number of its stores for years. In addition, numerous “casket stores” have opened (and closed) over the last ten years throughout the country with the hopes of getting a piece of the traditional funeral pie. On-line stores are also marketing caskets using names like “Best Price Casket”, “Casket Gallery” and “Casket Express”. Industry experts estimate that the number of caskets purchased outside of traditional funerals homes is less than 3% of all caskets sold per year.
So why is the Wal-Mart play into the caskets market making such headlines in the media and in funeral service circles? Simply because of the size of Wal-Mart and its influence on the buying patters of middle America. Looking at Wal-Mart’s casket pricing, there is definitely some savings to the consumer; generally a few hundred dollars or so. I am not trying to minimize the savings, especially for families who have limited funds, but to delay the wake or service for several days waiting for Federal Express (yes, that’s how they get delivered) to bring the casket to the funeral home in many cases will not justify the savings.
If Wal-Mart caskets catch on, the funeral industry will simply lower its price on caskets and raise its service charge, mitigating the casket store advantage. While this may sound underhanded, it’s an economic reality of business. Funeral homes charge for two basic categories for a funeral. The first is the service of the funeral home to do things like pick up the deceased, embalm, renting the funeral home for the visitation, use of the hearse and involvement in the ceremony. The second category is merchandise – the casket, cemetery vault, printed items such as memorial cards and sign in books. Let’s say a typical funeral home charges $4,000 for all the components of their service for a full traditional funeral. And the funeral homes sells 20 caskets ranging from $900 to $5,000 with an average sale of $2,000. So on average, the funeral home will generate $6,000 in revenue (not profit) from the average traditional funeral. Funeral homes set their prices for both services and merchandise based on their cost of doing business so they can cover personnel fees, building expenses, taxes and other expenses, and factoring in a profit margin – hopefully around 10%. If a funeral home starts loosing its caskets sales to outside companies like Wal-Mart, then the firm will simply adjust it’s pricing. In our example above, the firm may bump its service charge to $4,500 and lower its caskets by $500 with the new average sales being $1,500. At the end of the day, the funeral is still $6,000 to the consumer. The thing that makes the Wal-Mart decision bad for funeral service, is that if funeral homes raise their service charges, consumers will have to pay it. Allowing funeral homes to move some of its profit onto the casket provides consumers the ability to still purchase caskets in a a wide range of prices. But if firms have to recoup most of its profits from their services, funeral prices nationwide will increase, which is not in the best interest of consumers or the industry.
One little knownaspect of what we do at Phaneuf Funeral Homes and Crematorium is conduct training programs and workshops for caregivers and those in the healthcare field. At first blush, there may seem to be a disconnect in a funeral home providing this sort of training. However, we have found that nearly all caregivers have not had sufficient training and lack the knowledge as to what happens after someone in their care passes away.
Recently, we provided a two hour workshop to over 60 nursing students on the funeral arrangment process. Most of these young (and not so young) students had no idea what the process was about. Yet, many newly licensed nurses will have their first job experience in nursing home and assisted living facilities. Clearly, this sort of training can only assist them in providing valuable information to their client families. Earlier this month, we conducted an evening workshop for hospice volunteers on funeral and cremation options. Again, these volunteers are on the front lines, speaking with families. Arming them with knowledge only helps them manage the process. Another group we recently provided training to was a local nursing home. Most of the workshop focused on the process of filing death certificates and legal issues around autopsies and the role of the medical examiners office. These are topics of importance to these professionals yet not something taught in nursing school or any other caregiver program.
We provide our training programs both on-site and off site and offer it free of charge. If you work for a nursing home, hospice program, hospital or other caregiver organization in New Hampshire and would like more information about one of free programs, please give me a call at 625-5778 or email me at buddy@phaneuf.net
Did you know that Phaneuf Funeral Homes and Crematorium provides free tours, seminars, workshops and training programs to the public? If your civic or church group is interested in learning more about funeral and options, we can put together a custom presentation either at one of our funeral home on on-site at you location free of charge. If you are a caregiver, we provide in-service training to nurses, aides, and other health care professionals on a variety of topics including funerals, cremation, state laws, death certificates, organ and body donati0n and green burials. In the past we have worked with over fifty different nursing homes, hospice organizations, college nursing programs and hospitals in developing training for their staff and students.
If you are interested in learning more about our free educational programs, please give me a call at 603-625-5778 or send me an email at buddy@phaneuf.net. As mentioned, these programs are all free of charge and can be tailored to meet the educational or informational needs of your group or company.
If anyone is interested in obtaining free legal advice or learning more about estates, wills, trusts, medicade, advanced directives and other related legal issues, we are hosting a seminar at our 243 Hanover Street location on Tuesday October 20th at 2:00 PM. Attorney Frank Mesmer will be discussing the legal ins and outs of estate planning and will be available to answer your questions. Following that, I will be speaking on funeral planning, options and funding. The seminar is limited to 50 people and while it is free, preregistration is required. To register, call our main office at 603-625-5777 or send me an email at buddy@phaneuf.net. Just provide your name and the number of people attending.
This is our 10th annual estate and funeral planning seminar and each has been a great success. After the seminar, which generally lasts around 90 minutes, Attorney Mesmer and I will be available to discuss any specific issues you may have or answer questions one on one. Come join us for an interesting afternoon.
We recently teamed up with a companycalled Everyscape (www.everyscape.com) to develop a virtual tour of our funeral homes in Manchester and Boscawen. Most people associate web-based virtual tours with looking for a new home or inquiring about a resort destination hotel. But the technology has come to funeral service and as far as we know, we are the first funeral firm in country to use this state-of-the-art process. For people that are not familiar with our facilities, they can get acclimated to the layout of our facilities. For those considering using one of our chapels for a service, they can take a look and see if the facilities will meet their needs. Everyscape is also partnering with Google Earth to create tours that begin above a community, come down to street level and right into the building. We recently were asked about our crematories by a family and after my explanation of the process over the phone, I directed her to our virtual tour which also allows visitors to tour the crematories. She called me later in the day and told me that she now had a much better understanding of the process and felt better about cremating her mother. We have a few links to our tour. One way is to go to our main page at www.phaneuf.net and select the tour next to our locations. Another is to view the tour through Everyscape’s website. Either way, its well worth 5 minutes of our time.
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