Has anyone recently passed away in your family? The last thing you need is additional stress in making preparations for the funeral. These tips should help you.
Steps
Step 1. Choose a funeral home
Prices and quality of service may vary, even between two funeral homes in the same neighborhood. Call the agencies and ask them to send you a price list to evaluate. Italian and European laws oblige them to provide you with a detailed account of expenses. Once you have chosen an agency that you believe is adequate for your needs, the undertaker will ask you all the necessary questions and will help you organize the funeral. Don't be afraid to consult with different funeral homes and discuss costs and services with them.
Step 2. Call your priest, pastor, rabbi, or other spiritual guide to book your chosen place of worship for the funeral
Otherwise, if the deceased was not religious, call a registrar who can perform the ceremony.
Step 3. Ask friends and loved ones to bring pictures of the deceased to make a photo collage
Step 4. Also, give a photo of the deceased to the undertaker
This will help him prepare the deceased to look as good as possible as they did when he was alive. This is very important, especially if you intend to give him an open coffin funeral.
- Remember that photos should show the deceased when he was in good health, of course. The purpose of the funeral directors is to make the deceased appear as his family members remember him; so you shouldn't provide photos of when he was sick.
- You must understand that there are circumstances in which the funeral director might suggest having a funeral with the coffin closed, because it may not be possible for the impresario and the embalmer to restore the appearance of the deceased.
Step 5. Consider asking for donations, instead of or in addition to flowers
If you decide to do this, consider what the deceased's wish would have been.
Step 6. Prepare a guest book for the wake and funeral so that those in attendance can sign it if they want
This will give you a way to know who came to the funeral, as you may be too upset on the day of the wake to be able to speak to all the guests and greet them.
Step 7. Consider posting an obituary
This could serve to inform people who have not been notified of the deceased's death. You can decide to publish it only in the newspaper of your city or in others, if the deceased had friends elsewhere (in other words, if the person has moved from the place where they grew up, it might be a good idea to publish an obituary in the newspaper as well. of the city where he lived before, if you think there may be people who might want to come to the funeral).
Step 8. Make preparations in advance to reduce stress and confusion
There is a service that can help you get organized called "Memorial Preferences" (in English), which will send you a diary with checklists, a space where you can write your notes, enter your medical, family, military and financial data, as well as examples of obituaries you can use to write one yourself, and a page full of advice that will help you make the necessary preparations.
Advice
- If they do send you flowers, use a piece of paper to write a brief description of each flower arrangement and who is sending it to you before you discard it. Having a house full of flowers could depress you even more when you have to deal with a recent bereavement.
- Buy the Good Grief book. It's a short book full of useful advice - but only available in English.
- Ask for help. Others want to help you, but they often feel helpless.
