Monthly Archives: October 2020

cremation services in College Park, MD

The Changes of Loss

After cremation services in College Park, MD, you will be confronted with a lot of changes in your life and to your life because of the death of your loved one. These are often very big changes that take time to adjust and adapt to.

One of the changes you will experience when you lose a loved one is with relationships. You and your family may notice that some people who were friends and who were close before your loved one died become scarce and more distant.

In part, this scarcity and distancing may be because these people are uncomfortable with the death of your loved one and don’t know what to say or do. This scarcity and distancing may, however, be because your deceased loved one was the connection between you and your family and that group of people. When your loved one dies, the connection gets broken.

On the flip side, another change may be that some relationships with other people get closer and stronger. Death has a way of bringing people that may have been more peripheral in your life into a more central role in your life.

Another reason for changes in relationships after your loved one has died is that you and your family have different interests, priorities, and goals than the people you interacted a lot with before your loved one died.

The routines you and your family had before your loved one died will also change. For example, if your loved one had a terminal illness, much of your time as a family may have been spent involved in caregiving activities, like managing medical appointments, caring for your loved one at home, and spending time at the hospital with them.

Once your loved one dies, those activities will stop. This can be a very abrupt change and you and your family may feel a bit lost without all of your energy and attention being focused on taking care of the needs of your loved one.

In time, you’ll develop new routines, but it will take some time to get used to not having to be on call all the time and having the ability to do things that you may have not been able to do while you were caregiving.

Another change that you and your family will experience after the death of your loved one is that of responsibilities. Usually, within a family unit, different members have different responsibilities that they naturally fall into, either because they’re good at them or they chose to do them.

Your loved one had responsibilities that they took care of before they died. You and other family members will now have to pick those up. If they are unfamiliar or you were not part of the execution before your loved one died, this change can be very stressful.

For example, if your spouse handled all the household finances or took care of all the car maintenance, you and your family may initially be at a loss as to what to do. However, by working together – and using help offered by friends or trusted advisors – you and your family members can learn how to take care of these responsibilities and excel at doing them.

A big change that you and your family may face is in your financial situation. If your loved one was the primary wage earner for the family, you and your family may need to find ways to make up for the lost income their death brings. You may have to work more or enter the workforce after a long absence. This can be very stressful.

cremation services in College Park, MD

Regardless of the changes the loss of your loved one brings, you and your family will learn to cope with them, and, in time, you will be able to navigate them successfully.

If you want information about cremation services offered in College Park, MD, you can talk with our expert staff at Donald V. Borgwardt Funeral Home, P.A.

funeral homes in College Park, MD

Social Distancing and Funerals

When planning funerals now at funeral homes in College Park, MD, one of things that you will have to take into consideration is social distancing. While most Americans seem to have a very difficult time figuring out how to measure six feet between them and other people, your funeral director will have all the social distancing protocols in place for the funeral of your loved one.

Social distancing, especially for funerals, can be very hard to deal with. Funerals, by their very nature, are designed to bring people close together so that the grieving family can get the comfort, support, and consolation they need as they deal with the death of their loved one.

Social distancing eliminates touch, which is an integral part of comfort, as well as intimate conversation (it’s hard to share special moments when you’re talking with someone who’s six feet away from you). Social distancing, which includes the wearing of face masks, also removes some of the contextual interaction that you glean from another person’s facial expressions.

There are also limitations for funeral homes as to how many people can be at a funeral in person. This means that many of the people who may want to attend the funeral of your loved one will not be able to.

Funerals homes, however, have adapted quickly to these limitations and now offer a variety of ways to have funeral services that fulfill the needs of the family for support and consolation and fulfill the needs of mourners to be present to pay their respects to the deceased and to participate in the service.

Some funeral homes, for example, are doing drive-by visitations. You and your family will line up at the entrance at the funeral home, and mourners who want to pay their respects to your loved one and offer their sympathy for you and your family “visit” with you in their car with the windows rolled down.

While you may not get the hugs and physical interaction that is traditional in a visitation, this is an excellent way for both you and your family to get the support you need from mourners who want to offer it to you.

There are many options that funeral homes have for funeral services. One is to offer live streaming services. People who want to attend your loved one’s funeral service can simply join the service virtually online.

Another option is to record the funeral service and make it available to you and your family to share with other mourners.

A third option is for you to host your own virtual funeral service using a streaming service like Zoom or Facebook video messaging. With this option, you can either hold the service at the funeral home or you can hold it in your own home, but people can join the service and even participate live in the service.

With this option, you can have people join the funeral service virtually to do readings, to give eulogies, and to play live music, which are all important components of a traditional funeral service.

funeral homes in College Park, MD

Even though social distancing because of COVID-19 has drastically changed how traditional events, including funerals, are held, that doesn’t mean that you and your family can’t have the support and consolation you need and that you can’t have a meaningful funeral service for your loved one.

If you’d like to know more about planning funerals at funeral homes in College Park, MD, you can talk with our knowledgeable team at Donald V. Borgwardt Funeral Home, P.A.

cremation services offered in Adelphi, MD

Should You Have a Celebration of Life?

After cremations as part of the cremation services offered in Adelphi, MD, one of the types of memorial services that you can have is a celebration of life. When you die, your family will understandably be devastated with your loss.

They will be grieving your absence in their lives. They will want a service that is not only a memorial to you, but that also allows them to share memories, stories, and adventures in their life with you.

Choosing a celebration of life as a memorial service is often based on who you were as a person and how you want to be remembered. You may not want a somber, serious, and formal memorial service, but instead you may want a service that is uplifting and that focuses on the life you lived, not the death you died.

A celebration of life is a service that focuses on how you lived your life, instead of focusing solely on your death. If you are someone who is lighthearted and doesn’t like serious ceremonies, then a celebration of life may be the perfect choice for your memorial service.

Celebrations of life are very informal gatherings. The focus of a celebration of life is to talk about you when you were alive and to celebrate the life that you lived. While a celebration of life is not exactly a party, the focus is more about living than dying.

So what’s involved in a celebration of life? Usually, celebrations of life feature some sort of entertainment, food, drinks, and a very loose, informal atmosphere where friends and family exchange memories and stories about you and your impact on their lives.

Some people choose to have their favorite games or pastimes as the centerpiece of their celebration of life. For example, if you love football, your friends and family might hold your celebration of life while watching your favorite football team play.

Other examples might be having a celebration of life at the beach or going skiing in the mountains.

Whatever is special to you in your life might be used as the theme of your celebration of life. Since celebrations of life are held after cremation, you can even have your family and friends take the time to plan a weekend to meet somewhere to have your celebration of life.

Music is one of the things that most of us hold dear. We like certain genres of music or certain songs, and many celebrations of life will include our favorite songs or genres of music. You might want to have live music or you may want to make a celebration of life playlist on Spotify or another streaming music service to be played at your celebration of life.

Food and drinks are almost always a part of celebrations of life. You can request that your celebration of life be held at one of your favorite restaurants or you can ask that your favorite foods and drinks be served at your celebration of life. Since the focus is on you and your life, the food and drinks served should be the ones that are your favorites.

cremation services offered in Adelphi, MD

The atmosphere of celebrations of life is very casual and so too, often, is the dress. You can specify what you’d like people to wear if there is a theme (such as a football game) to your celebration of life.

If you want more information about cremation services offered in Adelphi, MD, you can talk with our expert staff at Donald V. Borgwardt Funeral Home, P.A.

funeral homes in Adelphi, MD

The Emotional Purposes of a Funeral

For some funerals at funeral homes in Adelphi, MD, the obituaries will say that they are not having any kind of formal services for their deceased loved ones at their request. While it is up to each person to decide how they want their deaths to be memorialized, you should think about why funeral rituals exist before you ask your family not to have a service when you die.

One of the reasons for funerals is to acknowledge the life of someone who has died. When you ask your family not to have a funeral for you when you die, although you may not realize it, what you’re asking them to do is not to acknowledge your life.

Every life is important. Your life is important. You have made contributions to your family, to your community, and to the world around you. If you don’t have a funeral service, then it doesn’t give your family a chance to acknowledge the contributions that you’ve made throughout your life, in every area of your life.

Another reason for funerals is to allow people who love you to grieve together over your loss. Grieving is hard, but it’s not as hard when you’re surrounded by people who care, who want to comfort, who want to support you in that grief.

A funeral gives that environment so that your family can get the consolation and the sympathy that they need as they mourn your death. If you choose not to have a funeral, then you deprive your family of the support they need at a very vulnerable time after your death.

Funerals memorialize those who have died. What this means is that memories and stories of the person who is died get shared. The sharing of those stories and memories is etched in the minds of your loved ones as they remember who you were and what you gave them when you were alive.

If your family doesn’t have an opportunity to do this after your death, there can be a sense of emptiness and incompletion with regard to both your life and your death.

Closure is one of the most important parts of funeral rituals. While your family will never forget you, and the void that you leave behind is unfillable, a funeral will allow your family to accept the reality of your death and start on the journey forward in a life without you.

This is essential. You want your family to be able to process their grief in a healthy way, to move forward in a meaningful way, and to be able to accept your death without forgetting your life.

When there is no closure after someone dies, there can be emotional problems down the road. Your loved ones may experience complicated grief, which is a grieving process that can be prolonged over years and years. Your loved ones may also experience depression and they may not be able to ever fully process your death in a healthy way.

funeral homes in Adelphi, MD

Finally, funerals let the extended group of people who know you, who care about you, and who love you pay their respects to you and offer their sympathy and condolences to your family. Funerals give your sphere of influence the chance to mourn your death as well, but also to be there to help take care of your family while they go through the grieving process.

If you’d like to know more about planning funerals at funeral homes in Adelphi, MD, you can talk with our knowledgeable team at Donald V. Borgwardt Funeral Home, P.A.