Monthly Archives: July 2022

All About Mourning

Cremation services Waite Hill, OH, can change you. You must have heard, “No two persons grieve in the same way.” Grief is a highly personalized event that varies from person to person. But Therese A. Rando found out that the mourners have certain commonalities in their grief journey.

Based on his research, Rando categorized the grief journey into six separate stages known as Dr. Rando’s Six Rs of Mourning. These include:

Recognize the loss
React to the separation
Recollect and re-experience
Relinquish old attachments
Readjust
Reinvest

He further divided the stages into three distinct phases, which are:

Avoidance
Confrontation
Accommodation

Let’s learn more about Rando’s Six ‘Rs of Mourning:

Phase 1: Avoidance

It is the person’s first reaction to hearing about the loss. At first, the mind finds it difficult to acknowledge that the loved one has passed away. According to Rando, this stage has just one task – recognizing the loss.

After some time, the person understands and accepts that the loved one has gone forever. And there begins the next phase which Rando calls the confrontation phase.

Phase 2: Confrontation

After acknowledging the painful reality, the person comes up with defense mechanisms to deal with the grief and sorrow that accompanies the death of the beloved. Generally, the mourners cope with the set of emotions in three separate tasks:

React to the separation: This stage involves reacting to and embracing a set of powerful emotions due to the passing away of the loved one. Consider this phase as how one accepts, feels, and responds to the loss.

Recollect and Re-experience: The bereaved start thinking about all the good and bad memories spent with the lost loved one. Thinking of the various ups and downs in life, and how the deceased brought positive changes in their life.

These memories define how the mourner finds a new relationship with the deceased.

Relinquish old attachments: It is the third and last stage of the Confrontation phase. The person doesn’t forget the loved one completely but instead, goes through a slow and gradual process to start adapting to the new reality. To the reality of life without the loved one.

Phase 3: Accommodation

In this phase, the mourner tries to find the meaning of life without the departed soul. The feelings of sadness and sorrow still accompany him but he is able to overcome them eventually and find moments of happiness in life.

The two stages of this phase are:

Readjust: Trying to forget or get past the grief of the loved one and return to the normal routine. The loss of the beloved may have induced a permanent change in your outlook but will be better poised to cope with the challenges of daily life.

Reinvest: The mourners try to reinvest emotional energy by trying to explore new avenues of happiness. Such as indulging in new hobbies or fun activities that give them peace of mind.

The grief journey begins before the final service. Still, cremation services Waite Hill, OH, will let you say goodbye. Contact us today.

How To Plan an Unexpected Funeral

Cremation services Mentor, OH, are not easy, especially if your loved one’s death was unexpected. However, planning the final service can help you say goodbye.

It’s natural to accept that making funeral arrangements while coping with the grief of the sudden demise of a beloved is tough. More so, not knowing where to begin can further augment the pain.

Given this, we have provided step-by-step instructions to help you steer through this journey one step at a time.

1. Notify the Relevant Authorities.

First things first, notify the relevant authorities about the death of a loved one. Now, the order of events depends on where the death occurred.

If they died at home or in the workplace, you need to call for a medical emergency. The attending doctor or a medical examiner will examine the body and pronounce the death officially.

If the person died at a hospital or hospice care, a doctor or a physician will apprise you of the death and ask you to fill out the required paperwork certifying the time and cause of the death.

But if the person died due to unnatural causes, then you need to call 911 or the relevant LEA before moving the body of the deceased.

2. Get in Contact with a Professional Funeral Director

After registering the death of the loved one with a relevant department, you need to start shopping for a funeral director. Spending enough time to find a perfect funeral director would save you from many troubles down the road.

Most hospitals and nursing homes expect you to remove the body within a few hours, so ask your funeral director to transport the body and complete the death certificate.

You need to make several decisions like where you wish the deceased to be buried, the type of marker or monument you need, the type of casket, and so on. Having a cooperative and professional funeral director will ease this for you.

3. Write an Obituary to Notify the People

While you can inform the closest friends and family in person about the loss, you still need to write an obituary. It is a death notice containing the deceased’s name, their brief biography, names of the surviving family members, and the time and location of the funeral service.

An obituary is necessary to communicate the news to people outside your direct contact or closest relationships. This obituary will be printed in a local newspaper and lately, many families publish it online as well. Any requests for donations or charities may also be included in the obituary.

4. Plan the Final Disposition Services

If the deceased had a will about funeral arrangements, then plan all services accordingly. Else, take the input of immediate family and funeral director and plan to give the best end-of-life tribute to your loved one.

A good funeral director will provide you several options, like catering, music, floral arrangements, etc. to help you better customize and personalize the funeral as per your wishes. Plan your cremation services Mentor, OH, today.

Changing Funeral Traditions

Funeral homes Waite Hill, OH, are affected by changing times. With the strict government social distancing restrictions to curb the spread of coronavirus, people around the world looked for new ways to honor the deceased amid this global pandemic.

Are you excited to learn more about how different cultures and religions are adapting their centuries-old death funeral traditions? Here’s what you should know about the effects of the pandemic on funeral rituals:

1. Trend of Virtual Prayers and Rituals in Catholic Church

For nearly two thousand years, Christians receive their last rites from a priest in person. But the pandemic has forced many priests to go virtual. Thousands of churches and funeral homes around the world were closed for worship and funeral services during the restrictions.

The mourners relied on live video streaming to pay final tribute to the dead from the comfort of their laptop screens. Now that restrictions are gone in many places, some people still prefer logging in to an online platform and watching the whole funeral services while sitting at home.

An online funeral may be impersonal, but there are many conveniences attached. People who don’t have the ability to travel to the funeral can still watch the proceedings and be engaged. This is especially helpful if the deceased had friends and family in diverse geographic locations.

2. Changes in Traditional Islamic Body Washing

In Islamic funerals, it’s mandatory to wash the body of the deceased before burying. Generally, the immediate family members perform this service and wash the body of the deceased within 24 hours of death.

But the pandemic has turned this ritual to medical volunteers who follow strict preventive measures while washing the body.

These changes may seem small, but they are noticeable.

3. Virtual Shivas in Jewish Communities

Many people in Jewish communities no longer host guests for Shiva– a mourning period that lasts one week soon after burying a dead. Here, the bereaved family invites close friends and family to remember and pay tribute to the deceased. It is the single most important event associated with Jewish funerals.

But the pandemic has forced many Israelis to grieve alone at home and resort to online live video streaming platforms to help close ones get together and pay their condolences. Similarly, many Jews have quit reciting the Kaddish, the religious mourning prayer, as it involves the physical presence of a 10-people quorum in two lines.

4. Silent Banks on the Ganges

For thousands of years, Hindus have been cremating bodies in the presence of friends and family and dispersing the remains in the Ganges.

The big public funeral processions were a common sight in India but for almost two years (2020 and 2021), the pandemic emptied the mighty banks of the Ganges river where thousands of people used to pay their regards.

Similarly, minor to significant changes are observed in funeral traditions across all the cultures in different countries. The experts believe that the trend is likely to continue in the coming years as it has given more flexibility to the mourners to honor the deceased.

Find out more information at funeral homes Waite Hill, OH. Contact us today.

How to Help Grieving Children

Services at funeral homes Mentor, OH, let you say goodbye. Losing a loved one takes an unprecedented emotional and physical toll on a person. The journey becomes even more difficult for young kids when they lose a parent, sibling, or a beloved friend or family member.

Often, the child tries to hide their feelings which can affect their personal growth in the years to come if not addressed. During such difficult times, the caretakers need to help the child cope with loss healthily and bring them back to normal.

Don’t know how to do that? Check out the below useful tips to make the grieving children express their emotions and inner feelings about sorrow and grief.

1. Address Their Misconceptions

If the caretaker observes any unusual behavior or extreme worries in children, talk to them ASAP and address their queries.

While coping with the loss of a close one, children experience a mix of confused and complicated emotions. They become less communicative, confused, and angry at the same time. The reason is, that they don’t have much knowledge about the realities of life like adults, making it difficult for them to handle and share these emotions.

Make them believe that it’s not their fault the loved one has gone. They are innocent and brave enough to face this situation. Children can’t process such sensitive information in just one conversation. You need to have regular conversations to provide the information slowly. Assure them you’re always available whenever they need you to listen to them.

2. Be Honest with Them

You should not try to protect them by shielding information from them that is necessary to help them understand the hard truths of life. Encourage the grieving child to ask questions and express their feelings. Your supporting behavior will motivate them to open up about their grief and sorrow.

If you avoid talking to them about death, they won’t share their feelings and wear the cloak of silence. As a result, they’ll take longer to get past the loss of a loved one.

3. Avoid Being Over-Protective or Masking the Reality

Adults often try to be overprotective of the children and while trying to do so, they shield valuable information from them. Avoid using euphemistic language around death all the time.

Terms like ‘passed away”, ‘moved to a better place’, etc., and instead use simple, concrete language to apprise them of the realities of the world. Use words like ‘died’, and ‘left us forever, to help them expedite the healing process.

4. Help Them Remember and Honor the Lost Loved One

Remembering loved ones and preserving their memories encourages children to express their emotions. Find ways to honor their memory like planting a tree, throwing a dinner party, or doing charity work, and notice how the child responds to these activities.

Also, you may ask children to draw their sketches, write them letters, or make a memory box.

5. Open Up About Your Own Feelings

You should share your own grief and emotions with the child about the lost loved one. It will make them believe that grief is a natural process and one should talk about emotions and feelings with friends and family.

You can discuss the next steps at funeral homes Mentor, OH. Contact us today.

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