Lifesong Funerals, Author at Blog | Lifesong Funerals

Handling Anniversaries after a Loved One Dies

Providing grief resources is among the cremation services offered in Tallahassee, FL.

Any significant date in the life of a loved one who has died will pose challenges for those of us who are still living for the rest of our lives. It might be a birthday. It might be an engagement anniversary. It might be a wedding anniversary. It might be the date that our loved one died. Any date that is significant is likely to trigger grief.

However, there are ways to help get through these anniversaries that can help alleviate some of the intensity of the grief and channel our thoughts and emotions in positive ways that remember our loved ones.

First things first, though. It may be tempting to just avoid thinking about dates that are significant for our deceased loved one. We may just want to pretend they don’t exist and try to ignore them.

From a grief perspective, this is not a good idea. What happens when we avoid painful things about our loved one’s death – and that includes significant dates for them and us – is that we push the feelings of grief and pain down temporarily, but by doing that we are delaying the healing process that proper grieving will give us.

Whatever we push down will not stay down forever. Eventually, those feelings will come back, often stronger and harder to process and deal with, making our grieving process much more difficult and longer than it needs to be.

So, we should face significant dates for our loved one with a plan of action as to how we’re going to handle and what we’re going to do to remember them.

By planning ahead for these significant dates, we are calm enough to come up with creative ways to remember and honor our loved ones in a meaningful and constructive way that, while we may not realize it, also helps us move forward in our own grieving process.

One way to mark significant dates in our deceased loved one’s life is to invite friends and family over to spend some time with us on those dates. We can make a menu and have everyone bring a favorite dish of our deceased loved one, and we can share a meal and memories that remind us of our loved one together.

Another great way to mark dates that were significant for our deceased loved one is to do something they would have done. Perhaps they volunteered at a nursing home or they volunteered at a local charity. We can spend the significant date volunteering wherever they volunteered as a way to remember and honor them.

Maybe they loved to golf or fish. We could go out to the golf course or go to a river or the ocean and engage in their favorite pastime on a date that was significant to them, because it will remind us of them in a very positive way.

Journaling or blogging is also a great way to remember significant dates for our loved one who has died. We can dedicate the date to them, and then journal or blog about some aspect of their life that we remember, we love, and we miss.

For more information about grief resources and cremation services offered in Tallahassee, FL, including grief resources, our caring and knowledgeable staff at Lifesong Funerals & Cremations is here to assist you. You can visit our funeral home at 20 S. Duval St., Quincy, FL 32351, or you can call us today at (850) 627-1111.

What to Wear to Your Funeral

When attending funerals at funeral homes in Tallahassee, FL, you may be surprised to see the deceased not wearing a suit and tie or a nice dress. Funeral attire for those who die before us has changed in the last couple of decades, and now people are being buried in clothes that people are used to seeing them in.

Attire for the deceased has become much less formal. The reasoning behind this is actually pretty straightforward. If people never dressed up much in real life, and the goal of a viewing is to have the deceased person look in death as they looked in life, as much as is possible, then why would they dress up in something they would have never worn when they were alive?

It is now common for men who have died to be buried in sports coats and slacks, with a polo shirt, a team jersey, or even their favorite denim or plaid shirt. Women who have died are now more commonly being buried in pantsuits and skirts, blouses, and blazers. Some women, before they died, expressed a desire to be buried in their wedding gowns, and that is now a growing fashion trend for the deceased.

However, while the funeral home has no restrictions on what a deceased person can be dressed in for the viewing and burial, there are external restrictions that may dictate what kind of clothing the deceased can be dressed in.

For example, when Buddhists died, one of the restrictions on the clothes that the deceased person is wearing is that all buttons and zippers must have been removed. Buddhists believe that the soul of the deceased can escape through buttons and zippers, and to make sure the soul stays with the body, these items are removed from the deceased’s clothing.

In Jewish funeral tradition, deceased people are dress in a plain white linen or muslin shroud. This is considered to be a person’s purist state.

However, if there no cultural or religious restrictions on what the deceased person should be dressed in, the best way to choose their final attire is to dress them in something that is familiar to other people or that will remind people of something special about them.

Some families choose small items of clothing, such as a favorite hat or flip-flops or a college or professional sports team jersey, as part of the attire that their deceased loved one wears. They may also place items that compliment the attire in the casket with their loved one. It’s not unusual to see someone who loved to fish to be buried with their favorite fishing hat and one of their fishing rods or someone who loved to golf buried in clothes that they’d wear to the golf course and one of their golf clubs.

It is becoming more common for funerals to be themed. This means that not only does the deceased get dressed in a certain way, but so do the mourners who attend their funeral. Sports is probably the most commonly-used theme at modern funerals. The deceased will be dressed with a sports jersey and mourners will be asked to wear something to the funeral service that has that team’s logo on it.

If you want to know more about funeral attire at funeral homes in Tallahassee, FL, our compassionate and experienced staff at Lifesong Funerals & Cremations can help. You can come by our funeral home at 20 S. Duval St., Quincy, FL 32351, or you can contact us today at (850) 627-1111.

It’s Time to Talk About Death

Cremations are among cremation services offered in Tallahassee, FL. But before and after cremations, we should be talking about death as a part of life. Most of us are, quite frankly, afraid of death. It’s mysterious. It’s scary. It’s the unknown.

But it hasn’t always been that way. It’s only in the last 75 years or so that death has become such a taboo subject. There are several reasons for that.

One reason is because, as society became more mobile, extended families no longer lived near or with each other in housing arrangements with lots of support that accommodated the living and the dying. Once families began to spread out, and there were no longer family members living close by who could enable elderly people to live out their final days in the safety and comfort of their own homes or an immediate relative’s homes, the nursing home industry sprung up and our elderly relatives were sent there to live until they died.

In the 1970’s, retirement communities and assisted living facilities sprang up almost overnight. They marketed themselves aggressively to families as a place where the worries of keeping up a household could finally be put aside by older people, and they could spend their last years in a community where they could enjoy activities and leisure, with medical care onsite if they got ill or as they began to age and die.

Touted as better than nursing homes – and, for the most part, they were in many ways – these communities have flourished for 50 years. Adult children could assuage their guilt of putting Dad and Mom away, because these places were nice and offered more amenities than some hotels. Nursing homes, in the meantime, became a place where the elderly poor ended up because their families were not nearby to take care of them until they died.

Another reason why death has become so alien to us is that medicine has advanced so dramatically in the last 75 years in procedures and medications that can make people live so much longer that it has almost fostered a false belief that we can live forever. However, all the medical advances have come at a cost. Although we may be able to squeeze out more quantity of life, we often do it at the expense of quality of life.

But because death is the enemy, many people are willing to live with that tradeoff.

It’s time to change that. Sometimes living is really worse than dying. If there is no quality of life, then being alive doesn’t represent what being alive is supposed to represent.

If we learn about what happens when we die – how the body begins to prepare for death, shutting down slowly over a period of months until it finally shuts down for good – and we talk with our loved ones about how we want to die and where we want to be, then we can bring death out of the dark and into the light.

We need to talk about what we want after we die. We need to discuss funeral plans, our legacies, and even things we may want our family members or friends to have after we’re gone. If we start talking about death, not only will we make peace with it, but we may make the aftermath of our deaths more peaceful for our family.

For more information about cremation services offered in Tallahassee, FL, including grief resources, our caring and knowledgeable staff at Lifesong Funerals & Cremations is here to assist you. You can visit our funeral home at 20 S. Duval St., Quincy, FL 32351, or you can call us today at (850) 627-1111.

Coping with Addiction-Related Deaths

Some of the funerals at funeral homes in Tallahassee, FL will be for people who died from some kind of addiction. Whether the addiction is to drugs, to alcohol, to food, to risky activities, etc., it most likely took a life sooner rather than later.

Despite the fact that the obituaries of many older people say death was unexpected, the reality is that we do expect people to die when they begin to get up in years. However, it’s always a shock when younger people die.

When younger people die as the result of accidents, their deaths are both sudden and unexpected and the shock hits hard. However, when people died as a result of addiction, although we feel shock, we have to acknowledge that the expectation was always hovering in the background. It was never a matter of if, but a matter of when.

That being said, coping with addiction-related deaths is just as hard, if not harder in some ways, as coping with any other death of someone we love and care about.

Addiction-related deaths have more baggage left behind for the people who are grieving their loved one. Those are the things that we have to navigate through in addition to the normal emotional upheaval of grief and loss.

One thing that almost everyone who loses a loved one as a result of addiction has to deal with is guilt. Head knowledge about addiction goes out the window when we’re grieving, and we have to wrestle with the idea that “if we had just [fill in the blank] more,” we could have saved our loved one from addiction and from death.

Nothing is further from the truth, but guilt can be a hard thing to work through to return to that knowledge that our loved one’s addiction was not only bigger than they were, but it was also bigger than we were.

Another hard part of coping with an addiction-related death is children. Perhaps our loved one was a parent. Perhaps they were a beloved aunt or uncle. Maybe they were a grandparent. Maybe they were an older brother or sister.

When children are left behind after addiction-related deaths, two things must be addressed.

One of those things is explaining the death to the children in an age-appropriate way that doesn’t overload them emotionally or give them more information than they’re ready to handle. That can be a very hard line to walk successfully for family members of the loved one who died.

The other thing that must be addressed with children in regard to addiction-related deaths is self-blame. Self-blame is common in children, especially when their parents have died as a result of addiction. They come to see themselves as the reason why their parents were addicted and, therefore, why they died. It’s important to get professional counseling, if needed, to take this burden of the shoulders of children.

Another very slippery slope in coping with an addiction-related death is whether to explain the cause of death to the outside world of coworkers, teachers, friends who aren’t close to your family, and others whom you and your family know, but not well.

Many people are now choosing to tell the stories of how their loved one’s addiction killed them, hoping that it will remove the stigma and shame. Others decide to keep the cause of death private. Either choice is okay, and we don’t have to feel obligated to divulge more than we are comfortable with.

If you want to know more about grief resources at funeral homes in Tallahassee, FL, our compassionate and experienced staff at Lifesong Funerals & Cremations can help. You can come by our funeral home at 20 S. Duval St., Quincy, FL 32351, or you can contact us today at (850) 627-1111.

Books to Help Grieving Children

Providing grief resources is among the cremation services offered in Tallahassee, FL. After the death of a loved one, children may be confused about death and loss and the grieving process. While adults can think of death, loss, and grief in both emotional and objective terms, children often cannot, and what they’re feeling and thinking may be strange or scary to them.

Humans learn deep things through stories. Think of your favorite short story or novel and what you learned from the powerful story it contained. Children are especially adept at learning things from stories, and there are classic books that can help not only them to understand death, loss, and grief, but also parents and other adult family members in helping the children through the process.

Classic books that can help grieving children are available as picture books for preschoolers, easy reader books for elementary school children, and more advanced reading-level books for older children and young adults.

Always and Forever by Alan Durant is a story for preschoolers (3 years old and up) that tells how Fox’s friends reacted when Fox died. It describes their seemingly endless grief and their feeling that they can’t go on without him. Sometime later, Squirrel comes to visits and reminds Fox’s family and friends of the good times they had together, helping them to realize that Fox is still with them in the form of memories.

I Miss You: A First Look at Death by Pat Thomas is a story for preschoolers and elementary-aged children. The books helps children understand that death is part of life and that the feelings we experience when we lose someone we love and care about are normal and natural.

Another classic book about grief for preschoolers and elementary-aged children is Margery Williams’ The Velveteen Rabbit. The story tells of a velveteen rabbit that began its life as wonderful new toy, but now has become old and threadbare. It’s about to be thrown away when it is rescued by a fairy to Rabbitland. There the velveteen rabbit becomes a real rabbit who will be cherished by children forever.

Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo is a book for teens and young adults about Opal and Winn Dixie, a happy, but large and ugly, dog. Opal’s mom left when she was young and she is being raised by her father, who is a preacher. Opal and her dad have just moved to a new town, where they meet Winn-Dixie. Opal begins to learn things about her mother and is able to make new friends quickly because of Winn-Dixie. She is also able to let go of some of the grief of being abandoned.

Lifetimes: The Beautiful Way to Explain Death to Children by Bryan Mellonie is a good book to help adults explain death to children. The book is detailed and straightforward, yet simple enough for adults to explain death to children of all ages.

Eric Grollman’s Talking about Death: A Dialogue between Parent and Child offers an empathetic roadmap for parents to talk with their children about death. Its focus is on answering the most common questions that children ask about death, and it’s intended to be an interactive tool between parents and children.