Blog | Lifesong Funerals

You know there are two main choices for final services: traditional funerals and cremation services. When you are trying to decide between the two, either for a loved one or for your own pre-plans, keep in mind that both options are completely respectful and can honor someone in a nice way. There are no hard and fast right or wrong answers. There are also no right or wrong reasons to choose one over another. If you go with cremation, there are a variety of reasons you might do so. Here are some rationales that could help you move toward cremation services in Tallahassee, FL over traditional options.

1-You Can Easily Afford It

Traditional services can be very expensive, depending on what all you put into them. If you want to be able to afford the services without taking out a loan, borrowing from family, or going into debt over the situation, cremation is often the better option. It is simpler and doesn’t include so many products and services. It costs less automatically because of the things it doesn’t have to have. But you can still have memorial services and other things around the process to honor your loved one, if you’d like.

2-Options Are Nice

While there are a few options with traditional services, there aren’t nearly as many as there are with cremation. If you want the option of keeping your loved one in an urn in your home or scattering their ashes, you want to go with cremation. If you want the option of putting their services off for a few weeks, cremation is the way to go. If you aren’t sure what you want yet, cremation is a good choice because those options are available to you and there’s no timeline on anything.

3-You Think Your Loved One Would Like It

Above everything else, you’ll be thinking about what your loved one would have wanted when you are making the choice for someone who has passed away. If they attended cremation services before they passed on and make comments about it or if you know they were okay with the choice, that makes it a lot easier for you to move forward with the option. When you are choosing for yourself and your future plans, it’s a lot easier to decide what you do and don’t want. But you’ll also want to think about what your loved ones left behind would like.

If you have decided to go with cremation services in Tallahassee, FL, these might be some of the reasons you are using to land on that decision. There are no right or wrong choices and no right or wrong reasons. As long as you are comfortable with the choice and you feel it is the best, you should go with it. Contact the professionals at Lifesong Funerals & Cremations for information by calling (850) 627-1111. You can set up a time to come to 20 S Duval St, Quincy, FL 32351 and visit with our funeral director in person to work out the details.

Grief resources are among the cremation services offered in Tallahassee, FL. But even among professionals who are trained in grief counseling, little is said about the difficulties that parents face when they are grieving the loss of a loved one. Parents often try to shield their children from grief, because they are trying to protect them from the realities of life, which will come along all too soon.

However, what is best for the emotional health of both parents and children is to grieve together and for parents to help children work through the process of grief.

Death can be confusing, sad, and scary for children. Whether they’ve lost a grandparent or their favorite aunt or uncle, a child’s world gets shaken mightily when someone they’ve been close to, perhaps from their earliest days of life, and spent a lot of time with suddenly disappears. If that disappearance is not addressed or explained, then it has a huge emotional impact on the child.

They may start throwing a fit every time a parent leaves the room or leaves the house. They may start having nightmares. They might become excessively withdrawn or clingy. All of these are manifestations of fear and uncertainty.

Additionally, even though children may not quite grasp the concept of death, they are acutely attuned to the emotional atmosphere around them. Parents who are grieving may be depressed or irritable or crying a lot. When there’s no explanation of this behavior for the children, they may internalize this as the result of something they’ve done wrong.

It’s important for parents and children to be on the same page with death, with grief, and with sadness. Communication is the key to help everyone to move forward with good emotional health, without a lot of unnecessary baggage because no one talked about anything.

While communication with very young children may not be in the form of a lot of words and lengthy explanations, there is much that parents can do to soothe and comfort them. Part of this involves spend a lot of time hugging, holding, and nurturing very young children. Parents can say things like, “Daddy’s sad, but Daddy loves you,” or “Mommy’s upset, but she’s not upset with you.” By combining touch with soft, reassuring voices that soothe the child’s fears, a lot of the disruptive behavior as a response to the emotional charge in the home will be alleviated over time.

For children between the ages of five and eighteen, the death of a loved one presents an opportunity to explain what death is, that being sad or sorry about the person being gone is okay, and to give children a chance to talk about their feelings.

Younger children may want to talk a lot about the loved one who died and they may ask a lot of questions about where they’ve gone, what’s going to happen to them, and if they’ll ever see them again. Keep your answers simple, but be careful not to use euphemisms when referring to death. Although the Bible refers to death as sleep (which is in reference to the resurrection when the dead will be made alive again), younger children will react to the word “sleep” in a very literal way, and may be afraid to ever go to sleep again.

Teenagers may talk a lot about the death or may not talk at all. But make sure to check in with them often and keep the lines of communication open about what you’re feeling and what they’re feeling, so that they know they have you to come to when they do need to talk.

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.

Providing urns are included in the cremation services in Tallahassee, FL. However, when you’re going to travel by air with cremation remains (cremains), you will need a container for the cremains that is approved by both the Transportation Security Administration and the airline you’re flying with.

You can travel with cremains in checked baggage with most airlines – some airlines only allow cremains to be in carry-on luggage – but they must be in a sealed container that can be easily scanned. To ensure that your cremains don’t get jostled around in baggage handling, the safest way to travel with cremains is to put them in your carry-on luggage.

Cremains must be able to be X-rayed, so the container that is holding them must be made out of a material that the X-ray machine can penetrate. These kinds of materials would be wood, cardboard or plastic. Granite, marble, and steel are opaque, and cremains in urns made of these materials cannot be seen when they are scanned by the TSA.

If the TSA is unable to scan the contents of the urn, you will not be allowed to take it on the plane. This means that either you take the urn out the car, if you parked at the airport, and take the flight without them, or you will have to cancel your flight, get an approved container, and schedule another flight.

Airline flights are typically non-refundable, so even if you use Frequent Flyer Miles to book your flights, you’re now having to pay for two flights instead of one. That’s a costly error.

The funeral home director can help you get the right urn to successfully travel with cremains. Be sure to let them know, as you’re planning the funeral, that you intend to fly with the cremains to another location and you’ll need a TSA-approved container.

Different airlines have different policies for traveling with cremains. Domestic flight rules differ from those of international flights. Be sure to check, well in advance of your flight, your airline’s website for their policies on traveling with cremains. If you do not see any information on the website, then call the customer service number and talk to a representation about any special requirement the airline may have for traveling with cremains.

Be sure to have all the right paperwork with you. The funeral director can guide you in exactly what is required, both domestically and internationally (the funeral director will contact the embassy of a foreign to find out what their rules and regulations are for cremains being brought into the country), and can help you with any arrangements at the other end of the flight, especially in foreign countries, that need to be made to enable you to successfully get the cremains of your loved one to their final destination.

At very minimum, for domestic air travel with cremains, you will need a copy of the cremation permit and the death certificate for the deceased, the cremains receipt, and the authority of the authorizing agent form that you signed authorizing the cremation. International flights may require additional paperwork, but the funeral director will know this and be able to provide you with what you’ll need.

For more information about cremation services in Tallahassee, FL, 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.