Monthly Archives: December 2020

How to Honor Your Loved One’s Memory as Time Passes

With cremation services for a loved one in College Park, MD, you will deal with the grief that comes from losing someone who is dear to you and holds a special place in your heart. The initial stages of grief can be very painful and intense as you come to grips with the reality that your loved one is gone and all that means.

This period of the grieving process will be filled with a great sense of loss and finality that can be very difficult to walk through. When your loved one dies, you’ve lost them and all of your life, going forward that is associated with them. That’s a hard blow to cope with.

You’ve lost the plans, the hopes, the dreams of the future that the two of you shared. You’ve lost their companionship. You’ve lost their love, their support, their comfort, and all the ways they were able to be your safe haven when the storms of life rolled through.

One of the things, however, that you will never lose from your loved one who has died is your past with them when they were alive. You have all the memories of your time together to hold and to cherish for the rest of your life.

This gift may be hard to recognize in the early stages of grieving because you’re focused on what your loved one’s death means for the present and for the future. But, as time passes, grief changes, and the memories of the time you had together will start flowing in, offering a sense of comfort and relief for your pain.

You want to keep your loved one’s memory alive and never stop honoring it. But you may not know exactly how to do that in a way that is deep and meaningful. Here are some ideas.

One way that you can keep your loved one’s memory alive and continue to honor it is by supporting a cause or a charity that they believed in. Support doesn’t have to be just monetary. Support can also be expressed through volunteering your time for the cause or the charity.

Even if you aren’t as enthusiastic as your loved one was about the cause of charity, you can pay homage to your loved one’s memory by donating a little of your time or money to them regularly.

Another way that you can keep your loved one’s memory alive and you can honor them is to visit places that were special to them or special to you and them. These places could be as simple as a park that you and your loved one regularly walked through or a restaurant that was your favorite.

These places might also be far away destinations that you traveled to frequently. Maybe you went to a city like New Orleans or Seattle every year for a few days. While in New Orleans, you may have made it a point to stop at the iconic Preservation Hall to listen to local jazz musicians play. While in Seattle, you may have had Pike Place Market as one of your not-to-be-missed stops.

Whatever and wherever those places were, go to them. Enjoy the present in honor of your loved one and savor the memories of your past with your loved one as they wash over you to strengthen and hold you.

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.

Should You Have a Visitation?

When making funeral arrangements at funeral homes in College Park, MD, one of the things that will need to be decided is whether or to have a visitation. Many people have questions about what should and shouldn’t be done during visitations, so here are some answers that may help.

First, you should know that having a visitation for your loved one is optional. You and your family may decide that you just want to have a funeral service and/or a graveside service, and that is perfectly acceptable.

Traditionally, visitations are held just before the funeral service so that mourners can express their sympathy and support to the grieving family and so that they can pay their respects to the deceased.

Many times the visitation includes a viewing. Your loved one’s casket is opened so that the people attending the visitation can see them one last time and say their final farewells. However, you do not have to have a viewing with a visitation for your loved one.

In some cases, it may not be prudent to have a viewing for your loved one. If, for example, your loved one was in tragic accident in which they were severely injured, you would not want to have a viewing. As well, if your loved one died from a terminal illness that savagely ravaged their body, you would not want to have a viewing.

Whether you have a viewing with your loved one’s visitation is a personal decision that is entirely yours and your family’s to make. There is no right or wrong answer to whether you should have a viewing.

So, what can you do to honor your loved one during a visitation?

One thing you can do is to set up memory tables that have pictures of your loved one and personal things that were very special to them. For example, if your loved one had a favorite sports team and everyone who knew them knew about it, then you could set up a table that has pictures of them attending that team’s events or games and you can include team memorabilia from your loved one’s collection.

Another idea for a memory table could be to remember a loved one’s military service. Military veterans are often very proud of their service to the United States. For some military veterans, whether they served their entire career in the military or they did just one tour of duty, the military and their allegiance to the United States has a dominant place in their lives. Having a memory table reflecting that can help honor your loved one’s memory.

Another thing that you can do during a visitation is to play a tribute video that you or the funeral home creates. In your loved one’s tribute video, you can include a few of their favorite songs, favorite pictures of them, and quotes from books or poems that describe them or favorite sayings that your loved one was known for.

This tribute video can play and replay throughout the visitation.

Funeral homes have adapted to COVID-19 restrictions on gatherings, and they have found creative ways to do things such as viewings, which are usually held inside the funeral home. Many funeral homes have adopted the concept of drive by viewings.

With a drive by viewing, you and your family stand at the funeral home entrance and people drive up, one car at a time, and roll down their car windows to offer you and your family their condolences and comfort.

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

When Families Disagree Over Final Wishes

Often, when families are planning cremation services offered in Adelphi, MD, there will be disagreements about the final wishes of their loved ones. Funeral homes see this more than you might imagine and it is one of the areas in which they can help you and your family amicably get past any differences you might have to come to a consensus about your loved one’s final wishes.

It’s important up front to say that these kind of disagreements can be avoided if each of us sits down with our families before we die and tells them all at once what our final wishes are (they should also be documented in detail).

When we’re still living, we can explain to our family members why we’ve chosen what we’ve chosen and we can address any issues or disagreements that might arise during this conversation.

In the United States, we don’t talk about death enough or openly, and that is the primary reason why family disagreements over a loved one’s final wishes happen.

The death of your loved one is an emotional and unsettling time for you and your immediate family. Perhaps you are making funeral arrangements for a parent, and you and siblings are trying to decide how best to honor them and their memory.

Family dynamics alone are seldom without some friction and tension. Old feelings, words, and actions – many of which may have happened years or decades ago – that were never addressed and never resolved often come to the surface in times of crisis.

The death of your loved one is a time of crisis, and it is very likely, that your family dynamics will surface as you try to work together to honor the memory of your loved one and fulfill their final wishes as they would have wanted them fulfilled.

The keys to defusing family disagreements during the funeral process are to be willing to listen, be willing to yield, and be willing to put aside hard feelings or hurt feelings from the past. The death of a loved one can actually be a time of healing for a family, but it takes everyone’s effort to listen, yield, and set aside grievances to make it happen.

The lesson you can take away from this experience is make sure that you preplan your funeral. Decide whether you want to be buried or cremated. Cremation services are a very popular method of final disposition and they give your family a lot of flexibility in using your cremation remains to fulfill your final wishes.

Decide on the kind of service you want to have. You can have a funeral service (you will be cremated after the service) or a memorial service or a celebration of life (you will be cremated before the service).

How do you want to be remembered? Document everything you want included in the type of service you choose that you believe encapsulates your life and your spirit.

Write your obituary. No one can tell the story of your life like you can. This will be the last story you ever tell. Make sure it’s a story to remember.

Once you’ve preplanned your funeral, gather your family together to tell them what you’ve decided. Listen to their input, address their concerns, and work to get consensus. Make sure they know where your funeral instructions are so that all they will have to do is take them to the funeral home to be carried out.

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.

Why You Should Consider a Funeral Reception

When planning funerals at funeral homes in Adelphi, MD, people should consider having funeral receptions after the funeral service. Funerals, by nature, are a blur of many decisions at a very rapid pace after your loved one dies.

The reason for this is that you are in shock and numb at the loss of your loved one, even if you knew their death was coming and you thought that you had mentally and emotionally prepared for it. When your loved one died, your brain and body went into protective mode, which is why you’re both in shock and numb in the days after their death.

That is why you should consider having a funeral reception after the funeral service. A funeral reception gives you a break from all the activity that surrounds funerals and lets you spend some relaxed time with friends and family sharing memories and stories of your loved ones and getting some much-needed nutrition and hydration.

You’ve got enough on your plate, so think about turning the planning of the funeral reception over to someone who has offered to help you during this difficult time. The funeral home can help with accommodations for the funeral reception and that person can work with them to plan the funeral reception.

If you’ve been given the responsibility of planning a funeral reception, the best advice is to keep it family-friendly and keep it simple. There are many different ideas you can use for a funeral reception that won’t burden you with a lot of preparation all by yourself.

One of the most popular ideas for a funeral reception is having a potluck meal. People who will be attending the funeral reception can each bring a dish to contribute. You can assign the responsibility for drinks, ice, disposal plates, cups, and eating utensils to specific people to make sure you have everything you need to serve the potluck meal.

If you’d like a more simple funeral reception that doesn’t require people to sit, but instead allows everyone to mingle and talk, here are a few ideas.

Always be sure to have cold water, hot coffee, hot tea, and hot chocolate options for people to drink. Adequate hydration is always an issue for the grieving family because they are so consumed with everything they have to take care of, so having these on hand at the funeral reception will help them out.

You can do a funeral reception based on a theme. You might want to do cookies, dessert bars, and cakes. Instead of spending a lot of time in the kitchen making these sweet treats, go to the grocery store or to a bakery and purchase everything you want to serve. Grocery stores often care all of these dessert items already precut, so all you will need to do is the presentation at the funeral reception.

You can also do a funeral reception that features a variety of crackers, cheeses, spreads, and fruits. Fruits should be in season and should be cut up so that they are easy to eat. If you are using fruits like sliced apples or pears, add a touch of lemon juice to them so that they don’t turn brown before you serve them.

Funeral receptions are a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of the funeral process. You will find that they provide a lot of comfort and support at a point when you need it most.

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

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