When a loved one of yours passes on and you have cremation services in Des Moines, IA for them, you might want to take up journaling as a way to help yourself through the grieving process. Here are a few reasons you might feel that journaling will work well for you, or, at the very least, is worth a try.

-To Give Yourself A Safe Place To Vent

You are going to be talking to family and friends a lot, and perhaps venting your emotions to them quite a bit. But you might also want to have a safe place to vent other things that you can’t bring yourself to say out loud. You might want to complain about the burdens you are under right now, talk about how angry you are at the situation, and other such things. The journal is a safe place where you can let it all out.

-To Record What You Are Going Through

Grief is hard and it’s going to take whatever path it wants to take. As you journal, you are recording what you are going through, and that can help you to understand what stage of grief you are in, perhaps show you how things are going, and simply give you something you can look back on when you want to remember memories of your loved one that you recorded in writing.

-To Allow You To Look Back And See Progress

It’s never easy to grieve and you are going to go through good times and bad times as you chart your path to a new normal. But you are going to progress, even if you can’t see the progression upfront. Look back through your journal, perhaps, and see the progress you have made. You might recognize that when you first learned your loved one passed on, you couldn’t sleep at night and now, you are getting a full eight hours in on a regular basis. When grieving was at its worst, you couldn’t go an hour without crying and now, those crying bouts are reduced to a few per day. Seeing the progress can help you motivate yourself to continue down your path to healing.

-To Help You Cope On The Bad Days

When the rough days come, and they will, having your journal can help you to get through them. You can look back at how things were and the progress you made. You can read through memories you recorded of your loved one. You can write out what you are feeling and wonder why you feel like you are going backwards down the wrong path again. You can cope when you have something to turn to and the journal can give you just that.

When you are grieving, the professionals that helped with your loved one’s cremation services in Des Moines, IA are there for you, no matter how much time has passed. They have resources that can help you, like counselor suggestions, grief support group times and locations, and other such things

When a loved one passes on, and you have cremation services in West Des Moines, IA for them, you might put off their memorial for a bit so you have time to process things and plan out something special. Everyone wants their loved one’s services to be unique and one way to make it so is to have a celebration of life. You can celebrate a life well lived in a variety of unique ways. Here are some of the special things you can do that can help you to celebrate that special life.

Shoot Fireworks With Remains

Fireworks shows can be very special and impressive. They can be a nice way to cap off a life celebration, and your loved one’s life. While you can get and shoot off fireworks of any kind, you can also have your loved one’s remains included in the fireworks. You can shoot their remains up into the air as you celebrate them. It’s a nice way to give them a resting place and allow them to go out with a bang, so to speak.

Fly Kites With Messages

If there are going to be a lot of kids at the celebration, you are going to want activities that they will enjoy. Get some kites, perhaps, and allow them to color them. Others can write messages on them and then, the kites can be flown throughout the celebration. It can feel like letting go of that person as the messages to up and float around in the sky. Lots of kites flying together can also be a beautiful sight to see.

Launch Lanterns And Goodbyes

When the celebration goes into the waning sunlight hours, lighting lanterns and launching them into the sky in honor of your loved one can be nice, too. You can write messages, memories, and well wishes on the lanterns for your loved one before casting them out, too.

Have a Potluck Meal

Your family members and friends likely want to know what they can do for the services, and you want include as many of them as you can. Ask them to bring a dish to share at the celebration and you can have a nice, potluck meal. You can assign dishes, or certain areas, or you can leave it up to chance. If you end up with all desserts, so be it, right? The potluck can be a nice way to feed everyone and it’s also a great way to include more people in the planning.

Plant Seeds Together

One nice way to honor your loved one is to allow everyone in attendance to plant some seeds for that person. You might clear out a garden area and have some people plant flowers while others plant vegetables or herbs. As the garden grows, it will remind you of your loved one, but also the love of your family and friends who took a hand in planting things.

As you think about celebrations after cremation services in West Des Moines, IA, there are lots of options to consider.

Cremation providers do what they do as a service to the community. They don’t expect anyone to thank them for providing cremation services in Urbandale, IA. They know that their services are necessary and that everyone receiving them is grateful for those services and the care their loved one receives. However, if you got a cremation provider that went above and beyond for you, there’s nothing wrong with reaching out to them later and thanking them for their part in caring for their loved one. Here are a few things you might want to do.

A Nice Card/Letter

You may be sending cards and letters to a lot of different people who have helped you with your loved one’s final services. You can send a card to the cremation provider at the same time, if you see it fit to do so. They will appreciate the gesture and be touched that you thought highly enough of their services to reach out to them after the fact.

Recommendations To Others

One of the biggest ways you can thank a cremation provider is be recommending their services to other people. When someone in your life has to plan final services for a loved one, recommend the provider you used and let your friend know what they did for you and how much you appreciated their services. If you hear that someone you know wants to pre-plan their services, you can also tell them about your experiences with a certain provider. Word of mouth is the best advertising and the best way to say thank you to a provider.

Reviews Online

It will only take a few minutes, but leaving a review online can be a huge way to let someone know you appreciate their services. When you chose a cremation provider, you might read the reviews to see if that provider is a good fit for you. Leaving your own review about your experiences will help that provider to garner more business in the future and that’s a huge way to thank them for how they treated your loved one.

Prompt Payment

Cremation providers give you a service and that service has a cost to it. Paying them promptly and on the agreed upon schedule is a great way to show them you appreciate their services. They can spend more time caring for other people and less time chasing down debts.

An In-Person Thank You

If you really want to let the cremation provider know how much you appreciate the services they gave to your loved one and the way they treated the rest of your family, you might stop by their facilities and tell them thank you in person. You can take a card signed by your family or just stop by and let them know what you liked about their services.

When you have cremation services in Urbandale, IA, the provider is not expecting anything from you by way of a thank you. But if you want to thank them, there are lots of ways you can do just that.

There are lots of things you can do for someone that has lost a loved one. When they have cremation services in Des Moines, IA for that person, for example, you can be there for them in many different ways. Your time and presence can be of utmost importance to someone who is going through the worst of times. Here are a few things you can do to be a companion to that person who is grieving.

Be Their Shoulder To Cry On

You want your friend to know they can come to you at any time and vent to you. Be their shoulder to cry on and it can mean the most to them. They know you are there with a hug and a kind word at any time. Your shoulder is open for business with no judgement and you can offer it to them and it means a lot.

Accompany Them To The Funeral Home For Support

When your friend is planning funeral home services, it’s important that they have someone along with them any time they visit that location. They might often have family to go with them, and that’s great. But if there are times when they need to stop by and do something with the professionals, and they don’t already have family going with them, make sure they know you are there to accompany them. You can be a second set of eyes and ears, or you can just be there to support them if they break down with emotions.

Aid In Errands/Arrangements

There are lots of things your friend might have to do around the services they are having for their loved one. They are also grieving and going through a hard time. They might have a lot on their plate and you can help to fill things in by offering to run errands for them, take care of small parts of the arrangements, or fill in other ways that are necessary. It can be a real relief to them to have a go-to person to take care of some of these things.

Feed Them At Home

When your friend is grieving, and trying to plan things out, you are going to want to make sure they care for themselves as well. Make sure they have nutritious food and that they are eating on a regular basis. That can help them to have the energy they need to get through this hard time.

Attend The Services They Arrange

Once the final services are arranged, you should attend those services to support your friend. Whether you knew their loved one or not, being there for the services to back them up can mean a lot.

Show Up After The Services For Further Support

After services are complete, your friend will still be grieving through the cremation services in Des Moines, IA. Be there for them through those hard days when others may have moved past the immediacy of the services. Emotions are still going to be high.

Once you decide on cremation services in Des Moines, IA for a loved one, you will need to figure out what you will do with their remains. There’s no timeline on their final resting place, but you are going to want to decide what kind of container you will use for their remains in the meantime. You could take the simple container that the provider will give you as a part of any package, for example. Or, you can get an urn of your choosing. One of the urn options is a biodegradable urn. Here are some details on that option.

What Are Biodegradable Urns?

Biodegradable urns are urns that break down naturally, either in the earth, in the water, or both. You can utilize these urns if you want your loved one to have an eco-friendly service. They are gentle and friendly to the environment no matter what you do with them. They also cost less, so you can save on the budget in that area as well.

When Can They Be Used?

Biodegradable urns have certain functions and there are times when you might want one, and times when you might not. For example, if you are going to keep your loved one in your home, a biodegradable urn is not going to be ideal. These urns break down and they would not be a good idea for a long-term placement in your home. On the other hand, if you are going to bury your loved one, either in the cemetery or in a home garden or another location, a biodegradable urn is a great fit. It will break down under the earth in a natural way. You can also utilize one of these natural urns if you go for a water burial. You can cast the urn into the water and it will sink and break down, again, in a natural manner, dissipating your loved one’s remains into the water.

Where Can You Find Them?

Most cremation providers have one or more biodegradable urns on the market. You can ask them about that option and for what reasons you might use such an urn. You can also buy an urn from any other vendor, if you so choose to do so. Perhaps you want an urn that has seeds in it that you can plant in your garden. You might be able to get certain seed urns from another vendor and the funeral home and cremation provider will use it without question. They simply want you to get what you want to honor your loved one, no matter what that might end up being.

When you are looking into biodegradable urns, there are plentiful options. You will want to look into the materials and consider the purposes you have for the urn. You will also want to think about what you want for your loved one, and what they would have wanted. The professionals that help you with the cremation services in Des Moines, IA can help you with the urn as well.