Must-Have Items for A Funeral Planning Checklist

Until you go through the funeral planning process, it’s hard to imagine how many decisions are required. To make matters worse, all these crucial decisions must be made during a time of loss and grief. When you preplan, your family avoids the stress of guessing what you would have wanted. A well-thought-out funeral planning checklist […]

Strategies for Grieving and How To Cope with the Loss of a Pet

Losing a pet is a deeply emotional experience. Our furry friends become integral to our lives, offering unconditional love and companionship. The grief that follows their loss is profound and often equates to losing a family member. Coping with this loss involves navigating through various emotions and finding ways to honor their memory. Here’s a […]

Fake Obituaries: A Troubling Trend

You might remember flipping through the newspaper obituary section or watching your parents and grandparents do this while telling stories about the familiar names they spotted. In fact, before social media, obituaries were the primary way we kept up with the passing of friends, neighbors, and acquaintances. Indeed, throughout history, preparing an obituary has held […]

Memorial Items for Loved Ones and Pets: Cherish Your Memories

Losing a loved one, whether human or animal, is a deeply emotional experience. As we navigate through the grieving process, finding meaningful ways to honor and remember them becomes paramount. This holds true whether you buy memorial items for loved ones as a gift for someone close to the deceased. Memorial gifts serve as tangible […]

Funeral Director or Funeral Celebrant: Do you need both?

Most of us know what wedding officiants do. They work with couples to design the perfect wedding ceremony and then conduct the proceedings. But did you know there are also funeral officiants—professionals who are trained to help plan and conduct funeral ceremonies? These experts are called Funeral Celebrants. What does a Funeral Celebrant do? Funeral […]

Tips for Coping with Grief on Mother’s Day

For many people, Mother’s Day is a time to celebrate and show appreciation for all our mothers do for us. And heaven knows, all those mothers out there deserve to be celebrated. For others, however, Mother’s Day can be a painful reminder of a mother no longer with them. If you’re struggling to cope with […]

What is a Second Right of Interment?

From our Mailbag: Why do I have to pay to have an urn placed in a casket or have an urn placed in the grave with the casket? The short answer is: The cemetery will charge you a fee if you want a second set of remains in the space with the first set of […]

How can a Death Doula help?

By Guest Contributor Catherine Durkin Robinson Catherine Durkin Robinson is the owner of Anitya Doula Services. She completed the End-of-Life Doula Program at the University of Vermont and is a member of the National End of Life Doula Alliance (NEDA). What is a death doula? If the pandemic highlighted anything, it’s how important it is […]

Are You Taking the Right Approach to Funeral Planning?

RETHINKING FUNERAL PLANNING – Take the same approach you take to planning for retirement. Most of us are accustomed to thinking about retirement planning. Even if retirement is years away, we understand the need to have a firm plan to get to where we want to be and retire comfortably. A good retirement plan includes […]

What Should You Do With Cremation Ashes?

According to the Cremation Association of North America, more than 56% of people chose cremation in 2020. The number has been trending up for some time and will likely continue to rise. No doubt, COVID has accelerated that growth, but many factors such as cost and the mobility of today’s society have been driving the […]