Monthly Archives: September 2021

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Healing from Grief

The pain of losing a loved one and arranging cremation services Willoughby Hills, OH, can be the most overwhelming experience one can have in life. The grief that accompanies the loss can take a serious toll on your personal and private life if the individual doesn’t adopt healthy ways to cope with it.

Here are some useful tips you should follow to stay proactive and accelerate the healing process.

Interact with Friends and Family

Many people going through the grief journey prefer to shell into isolation and distance themselves from family and friends. While trying to take on the grief and get back to normal life on your own is a commendable trait, but it’s also OK to turn to your close friends or family members

Psychologists believe that socializing with valued communities brings positivity and motivation in your life as well as provides much need distraction to recollect your strength.

Maintain a Healthy Lifestyle

Mental and emotional health is inextricably linked with physical health. One cannot expect to heal quickly without taking care of yourself. Act on the below tips to take care of yourself.

Eat a nutritious and balanced diet. It’s not uncommon for grieving individuals to lose or gain weight, thanks to a poor eating plan while coping with grief.

Get enough rest and sleep. Grief often affects sleep patterns, but you have to battle it out and take a full-night sleep for the first few days following the loss.

Do exercise. It can be light weight-lifting, a walk or run in the park for at least 15-20 minutes, yoga, or any fitness activities at either home or a gym.

Never overindulge in smoking or drinking habits as it weakens your ability to fight the complicated grief emotions.

Indulge in Daily Activities

Try to maintain the same schedule as was before losing your loved one. Get yourself involved in handling the daily regular tasks including household chores and job activities. Also, do your best to indulge in doing your favorite things that make you happy.

It can be anything from cooking, fishing, watching a movie with friends, or playing your favorite sports.

Draw Comfort from Your Faith

If you belong to religious faith, connecting to your beliefs can help you process your emotions. If the grief doesn’t subside within the first few days, try to talk to a religious clergy member or others in your religious community and seek their support and condolences.

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Honor the Memory of Your Loved One

Last but not least, look for ways to honor the memory of your lost loved one. You can arrange a family dinner inviting close family and friends where everyone could share the pleasant moments of the loved one’s life, volunteer, fund their favorite charity organization, lead a plantation drive or plant a sapling in their name, or anything that you deem good to do.

Research shows that honoring the loved one can help an individual overcome grief and begin the healing process after cremation services Willoughby Hills, OH.

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How to Plan Memorial During Covid-19

Arranging services at funeral homes Willoughby Hills, OH, helps you lay your loved one to rest. As of July 2021, many Americans have lost a relative or friend to COVID-19 which speaks volumes for the magnitude of damage and emotional turmoil it has brought upon us. To curtail its spread, federal and state governments have put strict restrictions and guidelines in place pertaining to social distancing and public gatherings.

At the same time, one cannot downplay the importance of holding a memorial service. CDC has outlined the necessary guidelines for people planning to arrange a memorial service of the lost loved ones.

Let’s deep dive into the important details.

Total Attendees

The most important question is how many guests a bereaved family should invite. The CDC recommends that the number of guests shouldn’t be more than half of the total capacity of a funeral home – to avoid congestion and ensure better social distancing.

Selection of Venue

With the easing of COVID-related restrictions, most funeral homes around the world have restarted their services. But the official guideline is to hold the service in an outdoor location. Ask the funeral home if they can arrange an open venue to make It convenient for the guests to follow social distancing protocols.

Guideline for Inviting Children and Elderly

Children and the elderly can attend a funeral service, however, even you invite them they may not come since they are most vulnerable to severe symptoms of COVID-19. Make special arrangements for them to help them feel included.

COVID-19 Protocols for Guests

Anyone visiting a funeral home should:

  • Wear a face mask and keep a 6-foot mandatory distance from each other if it’s required in your area. Avoid hugging other guests including the bereaved family if you can. For vaccinated people, the rules are flexible and they can make a handshake or hug each other to offer condolences and sympathies.
  • Keep a mini sanitizer spray in the pocket and use it after every few minutes as long as you’re in the ceremony.
  • Avoid touching the deceased’s body if Covid-19 is the major cause of death – however, no concrete evidence of Covid-19 transmission from the dead body is found yet. But it’s not a risk worth taking.
  • Refrain from touching and sharing commonly used objects in a funeral such as religious books, collection plates, programs, to help minimize the risk of spreading COVID-19.

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Capitalize on Technology

The outbreak of the pandemic has provided a stimulus to the virtual memorial service industry and many funeral homes have all the mechanisms in place to arrange live streaming of the whole event.

Regardless of how much effort and time you put in arranging a perfect memorial service, meeting all the COVID-related protocols, many close friends and family members may not be able to attend easily due to various traveling restrictions.

That’s why you can ask the funeral home to arrange for virtual coverage of the memorial service and let the guests know about the date and time of the event as well as which software to use to watch the live coverage if they can’t go to funeral homes Willoughby Hills, OH.

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Tips for Planning a Funeral After Hospice Care

Families with a loved one in hospice care know that the individual is near to death and will soon need cremation services Waite Hill, OH. It can be overwhelming seeing your loved one near the end. At the same time, planning for the burial and cremation can help you process what is going to happen.

Psychologists posit that the person in hospice care often wants to talk about their final services and how they will be remembered. In most cases, the families don’t get a chance to hold this important yet emotionally charged discussion especially if the loved one is suffering from a devastating illness or disease.

Keeping this in view, you should follow the below tips to plan a perfect funeral for your loved one.

Try to Find Out the Loved One’s Wishes

Many a time, a patient wants to actively engage with the loved ones and may provide instructions on how they want to be honored once the time comes. Consider these requests as an opportunity to reflect your unconditional love and support to the person in hospice care.

Hold their hand and let the person speak their heart out.

Finalize a Funeral Home

Locating a funeral home is a decision that should take enough time, research, and consideration. Narrow down your options using recommendations from friends and family and online reviews and choose a funeral home that fits your budget allocations and is capable of meeting the family’s cultural or religious requests.

Many hospitals require the family, as a part of the hospice admission procedure, to choose a funeral home and determine the type of final disposition – cremation or burial.

Write a Compelling Obituary

As part of the funeral planning, start writing an obituary for the loved one beforehand instead of leaving it to the last minute to avoid missing important details. An obituary is a perfect way to preserve the memory of the deceased and pass their legacy onto the next generations.

Take guidance from your funeral director if you’re having any trouble in crafting an obituary, its structure, what information to include, its length, and publication.

Choose an Individual to Deliver Eulogy

Determine who will read the eulogy at a memorial or funeral service. The person should be a close accomplice of the deceased, ideally, spouse or children. There can be two or more persons speaking a few words to honor the lost loved one.

Many a time, no one volunteers to deliver the eulogy for the fear of public speaking and it can catch you off guard if you haven’t planned it beforehand.

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Choose A Burial Place

Depending on the deceased and your family’s wishes, look for a burial place to lay your loved one to rest. In the case of a traditional burial funeral, the available options for the final resting place vary from private and semiprivate mausoleums (above ground) to memorial gardens, private estates, and cemetery plots (underground options).

While for cremation services Waite Hill, OH, you can scatter the ashes in an ocean, into the air, have them converted into jewelry, keep them at home, or bury them at any desired location.

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How to Move Forward After Loss

The death of someone close to our heart and having to go to funeral homes Waite Hill, OH, to arrange their memorial is often emotionally taxing. It’s can throw you into a new phase of life – the grief journey.

Death is a reality that you cannot escape and it’s vital to combat the grief that accompanies the loss so you can “move forward” your normal life. Moving forward doesn’t mean forgetting about the deceased, rather it entails active engagement on the part of the mourner to adjust to the new reality and return to life in a way that’s healthy.

Here’s what mourners can do to help themselves process the loss.

Accept the Reality

Denial is a common yet very powerful emotion associated with the grief journey that bars the individual from moving forward in life. Accepting the loss entails overcoming the denial response and acknowledging that your loved one has left forever – never to come back.

Arranging funeral services and honoring the memory of loved ones is a great way to embrace the new reality.

Acknowledge Your Emotions

Many people try to hide their emotions or ignore their feelings to appear strong. It’s natural to feel a rollercoaster of complicated emotions after losing a loved one and expressing your emotions doesn’t make you weak or vulnerable – in any way.

Pent-up or suppressed emotions hold you back in life and further complicate the grief journey. Psychologists recommend the mourners socializing with trusted friends or family members and expressing their emotions. Fully embracing the emotions – with tears or crying – offers maximum relief.

Adjust to the New Environment

One of the best things a mourner can do is undertaking necessary life changes to adjust to the changed reality. A part of it involves assuming the new roles and responsibilities formerly filled by the deceased.

Whether you’re a single parent, eldest sibling or child, or anything, you have to accept the new roles and do your best to fill the vacuum. Getting a new pet, indulging in your favorite activities, and hanging out with trusted communities in a comfortable environment also help you adjust to the new environment.

Take Care of Yourself, No Matter What

That is probably the most important step that is inextricably linked to the rest of the tips you have to follow.

Make sure you are getting enough sleep and rest, eating a healthy and nutritious diet, and doing things that are comforting and to some extent, give you happiness. Without taking care of your physical health, you’re emotional, spiritual, and psychological health will only deteriorate following the loss of a loved one.

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Find out what your body wants to stay healthy whether it’s taking a lot of showers or ordering fresh-pressed organic juices. Engaging in activities like regular exercise, book reading, listening to music, taking morning walks, and learning to nurture yourself will help as well. Hopefully, you’ll be able to move forward in the new chapter of life with renewed optimism and positivity.

You can begin to process these feelings after arranging the memorial at funeral homes Waite Hill, OH.