When someone you know has lost a loved one, your heart goes out to them and you want to let them know you are sorry for their loss and are thinking of them during this hard time. That show of support is important to those who are grieving. The professionals at funeral homes in Des Moines, IA might tell you that there are many different things you can send to someone who is grieving. Here are a few reasons why you might want to make that gift flowers.

You Want To Show Your Sympathies

Flowers are a great way to reach out and let someone know that you are thinking of them and that you want to show your condolences and sympathies to them. You can write something simple on a card to go with the flowers to let them know you are sorry for their loss. Flowers are lovely and they can have a lot of meanings behind them that will show your care, friendship, love, support, and condolences.

You Knew And Loved The Person Who Died

If you knew the person who passed on, you might want to do something for their family, but also for them in order to pay your respects. Sending flowers can be for the family, in condolence, and for your friend who passed on, to honor them. It’s a nice way to give them a gift that does both things at the same time.

You Want To Honor Your Family Member

If you are the one planning the final service and hosting the event, you might still send flowers to the funeral home to honor your loved one. You know you will likely get arrangements from other people, and that’s always very nice. But you might want something special that denotes your relationship to the person and stands out as something special among the other arrangements. You can honor your loved one with something unique.

You Want To Decorate The Service

There are many different ways to honor a final service, and flowers are one of the most common ways to do just that. If you get flowers, you can keep those arrangements in the background of the service as decoration. They are bright, cheerful, show the love others have brought to the service, and denote hope for the future, too.

You Want To Support A Friend

You don’t have to know the person who died in order to send flowers to the funeral home. You can send them in order to support a friend you know is going through a hard time. If you aren’t close by and can’t attend the final services, you can send flowers to let your friend know you are thinking of them.

There are lots of good reasons to send flowers to funeral homes in Des Moines, IA. If you aren’t sure what florist to call, or what to send, call the professionals for ideas and options to consider to show your support.

When you think ahead to the end of your life, you know that funeral homes in Urbandale, IA are going to care for your needs and take good care of your family supporting them with compassion. You might want to think ahead to that time and leave little pieces of yourself behind for the people who mean the most in your life. Here are a few things you might do:

Write Letters To Loved Ones

One thing you can do is write a letter to your special loved ones. You can tell them how much you love them, special things about them that you appreciate, and what you might want for your final services, among other things. Having that letter in your own handwriting is going to mean a lot to them. You might write a letter to your loved ones once, or you might write something every year or two in order to keep things updated.

Buy Jewelry Pieces For Each Special Person

You might have a jewelry collection already, but if you want your family to have something special from you, perhaps you buy a jewelry piece for each person so you can leave something behind that is just for them. You might even keep those purchases a secret so your family members have something special as a reminder of you in the future.

Write Out Your Life Story

You can get a journal and write out as much of your life story as you can remember, or at least highlight the important parts. Tell a few funny stories from high school. Let your family know how you met your spouse. Talk about getting your first job, having your kids, and so on. These stories are going to be something your family cherishes in the future and they can make copies and pass it down over time.

Take Videos To Leave

Everyone has access to a video camera these days and you might want to create video letters to certain loved ones, or to your family as a whole. You can, in your own words and in your own voice, let your family know you love them and appreciate the time you got to spend with them. You can talk to specific people, share stories, tell a few jokes, or whatever else you want. You might even let family know what that secret ingredient is in the recipe you always make. Leave that for your family to appreciate later on.

Plan Your Own Funeral Home Services

Another gift you can give to your family in the future is pre-planning your final services ahead of time. Work with a funeral home and decide what you want for your future plans. You can look over the options and make choices that will help to guide your family in the future. They won’t have those planning burdens in the future and you have peace of mind that what you want is what you will get. Funeral homes in Urbandale, IA are there to help.

When you are trying to figure out what you are going to do for a loved one who has passed on, funeral homes in Urbandale, IA are there to help with every part of the process. As you consider the options, there might be some things about funeral services that are important to you and to your family members. Those traditions can help everyone and they can honor your loved one at the same time. Here are a few reasons these traditions can be important to everyone involved.

Honoring The Deceased

One of the important elements of a funeral is to honor the person who died. That’s something most people want to do for their loved one as they move forward. They want to mark their life, honor them, and give them the respect and dignity they deserve with their final send off.

Remembering A Life

Your loved one was an important part of your life, and the lives of many other people around you. You want to remember their life and mark how important it was to all of you. That part of the funeral can be very helpful to all of you. You can remember that life and commit to one another that you will continue to remember that person as you move forward together.

Providing Comfort

Funerals are meant to be comforting. You are able to honor your loved one and surround yourself with people who loved them, and who still love you. The family members and friends can support one another through this hard time and get peace of mind through the funeral, too. Funerals showcase that your loved one was cared for in a nice manner, which can help you to move forward.

Gaining Closure

One thing everyone needs to grieve and move forward is closure. You can get closure in a number of ways, but you have to figure out that your loved one is gone and is not coming back. Many people get that idea through the funeral process. They see their loved one in the casket at the visitation, for example, or they get the feeling through the funeral rituals and are able to heal a bit from that closure process.

Acknowledge The Death/The Change

It can help you to move forward when you have a funeral for a loved one and acknowledge their death. Seeing that change and shift in your life and help you to grasp what the future is going to be like without that special person. Healing is a process and it’s not going to happen overnight, but the funeral can help you to recognize that things are different so you can move forward in a new manner.

When you are working with funeral homes in Urbandale, IA on final services for a loved one, there are a number of things you can do. But having a traditional funeral has its merits and it’s a great way to give family something they can utilize as a part of their healing process. Talk to the professionals about the details.

There are many details that you will have to put together in order to organize your loved one’s final services from start to finish. One traditional things that funeral homes in Des Moines, IA might suggest you do is write up an obituary. This is something they can place on their website, and you can then share, and it’s also something you can put in area newspapers. The obituary will announce your loved one’s death, but it will also give you the chance to showcase who your loved one was. Here are some things you will want to do to create a meaningful piece.

Read Through Examples

It’s a great idea to read through examples of obituaries so you can get a feel for what people include, the tone, and the general length. The funeral homes have plenty of examples they can pass off to you, and they can also point you to their website to read as many as you want. They often also have templates you can use to fill in your loved one’s details to make sure you get the important parts.

Decide What Purposes You Want It To Serve

Most people use the obituary as a death announcement, but you can also use it to announce the service details, if you choose to do so. You can even add details about your loved one to show their personality and style. Decide if you want the obituary to highlight their life in a larger way, or just act as an announcement for those who already knew them.

Include Pertinent Details

Obituaries always have some details included. You will need to include your loved one’s name, including any nicknames or maiden names people may have known them by. You will want to say their age and when they passed on. You will also include family members names for those close to them who already passed, and those who are still living. And it’s also customary to list the funeral home caring for them so people can direct their questions there.

Add Personality Items

It can be nice to add a few details about the person’s life so you are able to highlight who they were and some things about their style. You might talk about their career, their hobbies, or other things that were important to them. These are things you will briefly add because the longer the obituary is, the more it will cost to place in the papers. But it can be nice to add a few lines to customize the details even further.

Expand On It At Services

Keep in mind that you aren’t going to be able to say everything you want to say about your loved one in the obituary—and that’s okay. You have a funeral service to look forward to and you can print a bio of them that includes anything you want. Or, you can use the service and the things said about them to expand on it with funeral homes in Des Moines, IA.

Services that the funeral homes in Des Moines, IA hold for people who have passed on might feel rather traditional and ceremonial to you. There’s nothing wrong with that. Those ceremonies can give you something to look forward to and it can help you to feel as if you know what to expect from them. But you might want to add things to the traditions so you are giving your loved one something unique and special at the same time. Here are some of the things you can do as you plan the funeral home services.

Choose The Location

If you are having a traditional funeral, the locations are rather limited, but there are still options. Many people have the funeral in the funeral home because of the convenience and the good location it offers. But you can also have the service at a local church, if your family attends somewhere that would be special to your loved one. The location alone can help you to make the funeral feel more unique.

Decorate As Needed

You are completely welcome to decorate certain locations to make it more of something your loved one would appreciate. Many people use flowers as decorations and the flowers you choose can set the style and tone of the service. You can also decorate with their belongings, pictures, or anything else you want to make it a unique place to have the service.

Pick Nice Music And Readings

The music and readings you have at the service will help you to make things feel unique and memorable for your loved one. The music might be something on the traditional side or it might be something from pop culture that your loved one enjoyed. You can choose readings, like scriptures, poems, old stories your loved one wrote, and so on. The person who reads it can also make the event more unique. Even if you do a lot of traditional things, the readings and music you have available at the service can make it stand out.

Have Someone Speak

It’s completely up to you who you have speak at the funeral and that person can help you to make things unique and special. You can have the pastor of your church speak, a celebrant you hire for the funeral home service, a family member, or even a friend. You want to choose someone you know will do a good job and that choice will make a huge difference in the outcome of the service.

Use Videos/Pictures

Videos and pictures are going to cement the fact that your loved one is who you are honoring at this service. Even if you do the same things that you did for someone else, having pictures and videos of your loved one will be a reminder that you are there for that person and it helps to make the service memorable.

Enjoy The Reception Details

You can also make the reception on the unique side so after you visit funeral homes in Des Moines, IA for your loved one, you can have a meal for your loved one with your family.

There’s likely going to be some stress around planning final services for a loved one with funeral homes in Urbandale, IA. There’s no way around that. But when you start to feel like the stress is too large for you to handle, you are going to need to reduce the overwhelming emotions. Here are some of the ways you can relieve yourself from some of the burdens so you can get through this hard time.

Let Others Help

You have a lot on your shoulders, but that doesn’t mean you have to plan every detail, even if you are the person who is ultimately in charge of things. When other family members offer to chip in and help, let them. If someone offers to host and organize the reception, thank them and let them step in. If a family member asks what you need from the store, give them a list. Take people up on their offers to help and if you don’t get enough offers, reach out and ask. People are willing to help you in these hard situations.

Allow Yourself To Rest

Your body is going through a trying time right now. Grieving is emotional, but also a physical thing. You are going to want to rest whenever you feel the need so you have the energy you need to get through the plans. You may not be sleeping that well overnight, which is normal, so when you feel tired during the day, let yourself take a break from the plans, from family, and from everything else and nap on the couch.

Take Things One At A Time

There are a lot of details that get wrapped up into the funeral home planning process. When you look at the list of things you need to decide and get through, it can be a lot. Try not to stress over the many things you need to do and instead, tell the funeral director to give you one thing at a time. First, they might ask you to decide on a casket for your loved one. Then, they might have you pick out a cemetery plot and so on. Taking one decision at a time can help you to de-stress by looking at just what’s in front of you and not the large picture at hand.

Grieve When You Need To

Grieving is something that is quite natural and you are going to want to allow it to happen whenever it needs to. If you feel the need to cry, take a break from your planning and do so. Have a family member come over and give you a shoulder to cry on. Allow yourself those moments to vent your emotions because it really can help you to relieve stress.

Listen To Expert Advice

The professionals at funeral homes in Urbandale, IA are there to help you through the planning process and that includes giving you advice. Their advice can really help you to put stress into perspective.

There are some people that fit naturally into the role of a funeral director. While you may not be able to imagine doing that job yourself, there are individuals who feel called into the industry and couldn’t imagine working anywhere other than in funeral homes in Des Moines, IA. As is true in most industries, some people are better at their jobs as funeral directors than others. When you are searching for professionals, here are some of the things you are going to want in your funeral directors.

Compassionate

Every funeral director should be very good at showing compassion. Most of them come by this ability naturally and they all get a lot of practice at it, which makes them even better at giving you what you need moving forward. You should feel the compassion from the funeral director right away and every step of the process. If you don’t feel it, that might not be the right funeral home for you.

Supportive

Funeral directors are there to ensure you get what you need, and that your loved one who has passed on does as well. They are not, however, there to make decisions for you. They will support whatever you decide and when you have questions, they will support you with the information you need to make the right decisions for your family. They will also support you with implementation, compassion, ideas, and everything else you need to gather the right options for this event.

Dedicated

You want the funeral director to be dedicated to their job, not someone who is searching for something different to do. You should feel their dedication in the ideas they offer, the time they are willing to spend with you, and how they seem to want everything to be just right as badly as you do.

Hard-Working

Funeral directors sometimes work odd hours. They need to be available to you any time of the day or night because people aren’t going to pass away just during business hours when it’s convenient. You want your funeral director to be accessible and willing to work as long and as hard as they need to in order to take care of the needs you have before you.

Creative

You may know what you want for some of your loved one’s final services, but for other areas, you may not have any ideas. Funeral directors are often creative individuals who are there to help you with ideas and options so you can figure out just what direction you want to take for your family.

If you are trying to figure out what funeral home you are going to use for your loved one’s final services, you will want to look especially carefully at the funeral director. You want certain characteristics in that individual because they are going to be a point person in this process. There are lots of things you will want in funeral homes in Des Moines, IA you use for something as important as final services, including a funeral director with just the right personality and style.