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Personalization of Funerals and the
Healing Process
By John Roetker
Many changes have evolved in the long history of funeral
service. Trends have come, and trends have gone. One
trend that has entered the funeral scene is that of
personalization.
Personalization can take on any number of forms. Some
wish to bring items that the deceased particularly
liked, while others prefer to focus on displaying
articles that define the true character of the
individual. Funeral directors welcome and encourage
families to celebrate the life of their loved ones. We
routinely provide tables and easels to enable families
to appropriately display their memorabilia in a tasteful
and dignified manner.
Personalization can also be achieved in other ways.
Music by the deceased's favorite artist can be played.
Poems that he or she treasured, or found comfort in, can
be incorporated into the service. Register books and
memorial folders can often share a theme of a particular
interest that the loved one enjoyed in life, such as
hunting, fishing, motorcycling. Even professional sports
emblems can sometimes be incorporated.
Casket suppliers and urn manufacturers have also been
innovative in enabling families to select such things as
customized head panels or corner emblems. Urns and even
jewelry items can come in various forms that convey the
things their loved one enjoyed in life.
Sharing these items truly helps to convey the story of
the person's life to those attending the visitation and
funeral. More importantly, it serves as a very
beneficial tool in the grief and healing process. It
helps by allowing the survivors the opportunity to go
through photo albums of happy times that they shared and
enjoyed with their loved one. It gives a family the
chance to give real thought and consideration to items
to be taken for display. Most importantly, this process
stimulates conversation and dialog among the family. It
gives a chance to reminisce about joyful occasions and
the chance to re-live some significant times that were
shared with the deceased. These can often bring laughter
as well as tears. Both are truly helpful in the healing
process. We certainly encourage families to memorialize
their loved one through personalization, because they
will reap added benefits in the healing process.
John Roetker owns and operates Gladfelter Funeral Home
in Ottawa, Illinois. John has 36 years of experience in
the funeral industry, and welcomes questions that deal
with the services that funeral homes provide. Most
obvious are wake or visitation services, embalming,
caskets, and cremation. John also addresses questions
about pre-arrangement of funeral services, also known as
pre-need. If you have a question about these, or an
issue more specific to your situation, you can contact
John by email at gladfelter@hughes.net, by phone at
(815) 433-0097, or you can visit their website at
http://www.gladfelterfuneralhome.com. |
