Monthly Archives: January 2021

When Spouses Can’t Agree on Final Dispositions

You may be thinking about having cremation services in College Park, MD, but your spouse may want you to be buried instead, or you may want to be buried and your spouse wants you to have cremation services. You are both at an impasse.

It is not unusual for even the closest of spouses – who are generally in agreement about major things – to have disagreements during their marriage. Most of these are minor disagreements. They may disagree about how the toilet paper goes on the roller or what the right way to load the dishwasher is or what to have for dinner when no one is in the mood to cook.

These disagreements are the basis of a married couple’s story and they become part of their humorous legacy as the years of their marriage pass.

But, sometimes, disagreements are serious, and these may come when spouses start discussing the end of their lives. If you and your spouse are in disagreement over whether you want burial services or cremation services and you’re having a hard time finding any middle ground, you are not alone. It happens far more often than you might imagine.

However, there are some suggestions that you and your spouse can follow to try to reach a solution amicably.

First, treat each other with respect as you talk about the final disposition that each of you wants. Maybe you want to be cremated and your spouse wants to be buried. It’s important that each of you knows why the other wants the final disposition they’ve chosen.

Instead of arguing with each other and trying to convince each other that one person is right, and the other person is wrong, you both should ask questions about why your spouse has chosen a particular final disposition.

You may be surprised at the answers you both give, and you will both certainly have a better understanding of where you are coming from in advocating for the particular final disposition you want.

Second, you should spend time together doing research on burials and cremation services. For example, your spouse may be opposed to cremation services because they are terrified of being burned up (no fire is involved, in actuality).

Maybe they think they won’t be able to have a full range of funeral services if they are cremated (they will). Perhaps you have cemetery plots in a church or family graveyard that your spouse wants to use (urns can be buried in cemetery plots).

The more you both know, the closer you will come to be able to resolve your differences and choose a final disposition that works for both of you.

For an accurate and authentic guide to cremation services and burials, you and your spouse should make an appointment with the funeral home to talk with the funeral director about both methods of final disposition.

The funeral director will be able to give you answers to any questions you may have and can guide you step-by-step through both burials and cremation services so that you and your spouse have a full understanding of what is involved and what other funeral services are available for each.

While all of this may not put an immediate end to the disagreement you and your spouse have about your final dispositions, it can keep the door open to continue discussing it. You both have more knowledge so that you can keep talking about your funeral plans and make informed decisions about what you want when you die.

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

Why Have a Visitation?

When planning funerals at funeral homes in College Park, MD, one of the things that funeral directors ask people is whether they want to have visitation for their loved ones. You may not know whether you should have a visitation for your loved one or not, but there are some good reasons to consider having one.

First, it’s important for you to know that you can have a visitation for your loved one without having a viewing (an open casket with your loved one in repose). You may not want a viewing because you want people to remember your loved one as they were in a life or because you don’t want that to be your last memory of your loved one.

Those reasons are valid and your funeral director understands them and can arrange a visitation that doesn’t include a viewing.

One reason for having a visitation for your loved one is that it gives your friends and family members an opportunity to personally pay their respects and to offer you comfort and support. Even during COVID-19, funeral directors have found creative ways to make visitations possible.

Many funeral homes are offering drive-through visitations. With a drive-through visitation, you and your immediate family stand in front of the funeral home, and each car comes through one by one, with the car’s occupants rolling down the windows and offering you their condolences and expressions of sympathy.

This is a critical part of the funeral process, and, perhaps, even more, important now when there are so many public health restrictions that keep people apart and distanced from each other to try to limit the spread of COVID-19.

Some funeral homes are able to host smaller visitations inside their facilities, and a visitation for your loved one would give you an opportunity to pay tribute to your loved one’s life and shine a light on who they were as a person.

While close friends and family members may know your loved one very well, some of the people who attend the visitation may have known them only casually. Those people will be able to learn things about your loved one that they may not have known, and they will have a deeper understanding and respect of why your loved one meant so much to you.

Some of the things you can include as part of the visitation for your loved one are:

A tribute video – Tribute videos often include two or three of your loved one’s favorite songs and photos that highlight aspects of their life and their personality.
A memorial table – Memorial tables focus on some part of your loved one’s life that they were passionate about or that meant a lot to them. For example, your loved one may have been a music collector, so you can include photos of them at concerts and covers of some of their favorite albums.

Visitations can also help you and your family grieve together and draw comfort and support from your friends and other family members. Sometimes families have disagreements and rifts that only death can mend. A visitation for your loved one can be the first step toward healing and reforming bonds that you and your family can share for the rest of your life.

Visitations have many benefits, so while you don’t have to have visitation for your loved one, it may be something that you want to consider in your funeral planning.

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

Remembering a Loved One During the Holiday Season

After cremation services in Adelphi, MD, you will grieve the loss of your loved one. With time, your grief will change from the intense sadness you feel right after your loved one dies, and your memories will be filled with comforting moments that wrap around you like a warm blanket on a cold winter night.

However, the holidays may disrupt all that warm comfort as you remember previous holidays when your loved one was still alive. The memories of the traditions you shared combined with the actual absence, whether it’s an empty chair at the table or an absent helper in preparations, can throw you back into intense grieving because your loved one is not there.

One of the things that you may find yourself thinking about your loved ones is that you are the only one missing them. You may watch family members and friends going about their normal routines and not even seeming to notice that your loved one isn’t there.

You may feel upset that it doesn’t seem to matter to anyone but you that your loved one has died and is no longer a part of holiday celebrations. While this may not be true, it doesn’t change how you feel.

So, it’s important for you to be able to find meaningful ways to remember your loved ones during the holiday season so that you can be assured in your own mind that they are not forgotten and they will never be forgotten.

One way that you can remember your loved one during the holiday season is to carry on one of their traditions. For example, your loved one may have been a great cook and there was one special dish they made every year only during the holiday season. Find their recipe for that special dish and adopt cooking or baking that dish your tradition as a tangible way to remember them.

Another way that you can remember your loved one during the holiday season is to donate your time or resources to something charitable that was special to them. Your loved one may have volunteered to deliver holiday meals to senior citizens or to families in need. Your loved one may have served meals on holidays to people in need at a church or a shelter.

If you don’t have a lot of time, try to donate a little time if you have it so you can honor your loved one by sharing the same experience they had. However, if it is not possible for you to donate your time, make sure you donate your resources to those causes.

Food banks, for example, are always in need of more food around the holiday season. Many times they will specifically ask for holiday meal items to be donated, so check to see what they need and provide for them as you are able. Some grocery stores will also donate meals to families during the holidays. All you need to do to participate is to make a donation by adding a set dollar amount to your checkout total.

A final way that you can remember your loved one during the holiday season is to create something permanent in memory of them. You might plant a tree seedling inside that you can plant outdoors in your yard when the weather turns warm or you could have someone handcraft a memory chair or bench that you can put in your loved one’s favorite place.

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

Being Grateful When Times are Rough

Planning funerals at funeral homes in Adelphi, MD is never easy. When you lose someone you love to death, the grief, the pain, the sorrow, and the sense of loss you feel can make this time feel rougher than almost any other time in your life.

It can be almost impossible to imagine life without your loved one. What will you do without them? How will you live without them as part of your life? Where – and how – do you go from here?

Although the death of your loved one is very hard and there will be dark days and moments now and in the future as you move through their loss into new and unchartered territory without them, there are many things along the way that you can be grateful for.

Being grateful is a choice to see the good things around you. Even when your loved one has died, there are many things about them and your relationship with them that you can be grateful for. Gratitude has an encouraging effect, and as you focus on the things in your life that you are grateful for, it can help you move more easily through the grieving process without getting bogged down in it.

It’s easier to be grateful when your life is running smoothly. It can be much harder to be grateful when it’s not. But, ironically, that is the time you need gratitude and appreciation the most. So, here are some things you should look for and focus on as you mourn the loss of your loved one and you start a new life that doesn’t have them in it.

One thing you should pay attention to is the acts of kindness that other people do for you. These don’t have to be big and grand gestures and they don’t always have to come from people you know. In fact, one of the mysteries of life can often be that we are more kind to strangers than we are to our friends and family.

Perhaps someone you don’t know holds the door open for you as you are walking into a building. Maybe somebody you don’t know smiles at you when you need it most. You might have an uplifting conversation with another person while you’re standing in the checkout line at the grocery store or waiting to pick up a prescription at the pharmacy.

Those are acts of kindness that you should write down and keep as a remembrance of things you can be grateful for. Here’s an unexpected benefit of this: it will make you more conscious about practicing kindness toward people you don’t know. You will remember how these generous gestures made you feel and you will want to pass that experience on to others as you go through life.

Another thing you can do to promote gratefulness as a daily habit is to begin the day by listing several specific things you are grateful for. Include your loved one in this list. What things about them are you grateful for? What did they add to your life that you’re grateful for? What would you have never known without them that you are grateful for?

Not only will this encourage you in your loss, but it will also help you to focus on good memories with your loved one that make you feel encouraged and comforted.

If you’d like to know about funeral planning 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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