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Contacting a Funeral Home Director
By Cath McCord
When someone in a family dies the first action that the
family takes after alerting all the friends and
relatives is to call a local funeral home and ask for
the assistance of a funeral director in helping them to
organize the funeral. This is a very difficult time for
the family as they have just suffered a great loss that
rates at the top of the list for stressful life
situations. As such the funeral director has to show
great compassion and understanding as he helps the
family members make decisions about planning the
funeral. Generally speaking the funeral director will
spend an hour during the first visit. Longer than this
and the grieving family will receive too much
information for them to be able to absorb. If more time
is required, the funeral director will make a second
visit to tie up any loose ends.
During the first visit, the funeral director will run
through a list of details that need to be decided upon.
For instance, the coffin can be supplied by the funeral
home and the director will have a book showing the
different coffins that are available. These range from a
very basic "paupers" coffin to the very opulent coffins.
Coffins tend to be one of the most expensive costs in
organizing a funeral.
When it comes to the hearse, these are usually owned by
the funeral home and so require no decision on the part
of the family. The location of the funeral memorial
service is decided by the family as is the clergy that
will preside over the funeral. These are usually based
on familiarity with the family or the deceased. The
family can also enlist the help of the funeral director
with other details including the eulogy, funeral music
and funeral poems. The funeral director will often have
a book of these from which the family members can choose
from.
Headstones are another detail that the funeral director
can help with though he will usually wait until the
second visit to focus on this. The headstone often
requires several decisions including the material the
headstone is made from, the inscription on the
headstone, whether this will be part of a plaque bonded
to the headstone or engraved in the headstone.
Finally there are several areas where the funeral
director will either refer the family to others for help
or expect the family to handle the detail on their own.
This includes organizing the funeral flowers and finding
something in which to dress the dearly departed. In the
second case, funeral directors are starting to refer
people to companies that specialize in providing quality
burial garments and burial clothes that relieve the
family members from the stress of searching through the
clothes of the deceased.
Once the funeral service and burial have taken place the
funeral home director will usually make at least one
visit after to check on the family to make sure they are
coping and to see if there is anything else the funeral
director can help with. Some funeral directors will even
make an additional one or two visits just to keep in
touch with the family and make sure they are alright.
I enjoy providing information about funerals as this is
an area that many people have a difficult time looking
at and I like to feel that I can help them with some
information. What happens when the funeral home is
contacted is one of those areas that many people are
unsure about. I also like to write about other aspects
of funerals including the headstones, caskets, funeral
poems and eulogy. |
