©2012 Selected Independent Funeral Homes500 Lake Cook Road, Suite 205, Deerfield, Illinois 60015

www.selectedfuneralhomes.org

Dr. William G. (Bill) Hoyis a counselor and educator who has been walking alongside grieving people for more than 30 years. With experience in faith community, hospice, hospital, and university,

Dr. Hoy now serves as Clinical Professor of Medical Humanities at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

©2016 Selected Independent Funeral Homes500 Lake Cook Road, Suite 205, Deerfield, Illinois 60015

selectedfuneralhomes.org

This brochure has been provided by your local member of Selected Independent Funeral Homes, a worldwide association of independently owned funeral homes dedicated to providing you with the most complete information and helpful care when planning meaningful funeral services. Membership in this esteemed organization is by invitation only and requires compliance with the ethical and professional standards of our Code of Good Practice.

B arbara has

been sick almost two

years,” Steve told the

funeral director the

morning after his wife’s

death from cancer.

“She and I talked about

how she wanted to be

remembered. It was very

important to both of us

that we honor the life she

lived. We didn’t want her

life to go unrecognized.

And, well, honestly, I need

the support of as many of

our family and friends as I

can get. It isn’t going to be

easy living without her. ”

Why we gather. You might have heard a well-meaning friend suggest that funerals and memorial gatherings are unnecessary. Perhaps even your loved one once said “I don’t want any services.” Those of us who counsel bereaved people, however, are virtually unanimous in our perspective about the helpful, healing role of the funeral. Today’s funeral is for the family and friends of the person who has died. In fact, an effective funeral or memorial service helps grieving family, friends and community meet four basic needs all of us experience in the aftermath of a death.

Remember. First, the memorial service or funeral helps us remember. Through stories, photo collages, music, eulogies and video tributes, family and

friends have an opportunity to reflect on the loved one’s impact on others. Most people influence

others more profoundly than they realize, and funerals give us an opportunity to reflect on those contributions. If gardening, photography, sewing, sports, reading, crafts or any other interest were important to your loved one, your funeral director will help you select and display memorabilia to help you remember life’s special moments. Customized memorial folders and personalized caskets or urns are just a few of the options your funeral director can show you to help you tell your loved one’s story.

Reaffirm. A personally meaningful ceremony helps us identify the spiritual principles that anchor us in the midst of loss, allowing us to reaffirm some basic beliefs and values. For families who are connected to a faith community, the clergyperson and familiar customs of your faith will help shepherd you through this experience. Families who don’t consider themselves religious often ask for a member of the clergy to lead the service. And if you do not have someone, your funeral director can help you find just the right person to lead the service—a compassionate individual experienced in working with bereaved families, a person who is sensitive to a variety of spiritual needs and who helps family members and friends honor the life lived even while mourning the death of a loved one.

Realize. We live in a world that frequently denies death’s reality, almost as if believing that not acknowledging death somehow prevents its occurrence! Selecting a casket or urn, seeing the body, attending the service and going to the cemetery or other final resting place all help us realize that death has occurred, that this is not just a bad dream and that the world has now changed for us. Whether choosing burial or cremation, you can have a formal visitation for family and friends, an intimate family-only time or something in between. Even if choosing cremation, you can have the body present for the funeral, a frequent choice for families. Many faith communities encourage the presence of the body at the funeral, even when cremation is chosen.

Release. The final need we all experience in grief is the need to release or say goodbye to our loved one. Of course, we never completely “recover” or move past the loss, nor do we ever finish saying goodbye. In many ways, our loved ones continue to have an impact on us for the rest of our lives. Some families participate in saying goodbye by helping refill the grave or witnessing the burial. Your funeral director can help you make decisions about ways to involve family members of all ages in the process.

the following should answer some of your basic questions about funeral options and memorial services. Your funeral director will be an invaluable resource to you as you think about how best to honor the life that was lived.

Today’s funeral director is more than a caretaker of the dead; he or she also is a memorial event planner. A funeral or memorial service often involves the same level of planning as a wedding or bar mitzvah. However, the planning for this event usually must be accomplished in a few days rather than over several months, all while the family is coping with the sometimes overwhelming emotion and physical exhaustion common to the death of a loved one. Your funeral director is a caring, extensively-trained professional who brings a diversity of skills to the logistics of this event so that you are free to focus on your family and friends.

unerals are about healing and renewal.

hatever circumstances brought you here,

Funerals help us begin the healing. Your funeral director’s job is to work with your family, faith community and friends to craft a personally meaningful funeral or memorial gathering. Of course, the healing process of grief does not end quickly. When a loved one dies, our lives are changed forever, taking on a new “normal.” What a well-designed gathering can do, however, is help your family and friends with the long, painful and often mysterious journey we call grief.