One of the many things you can do to cheer up your grieving friend is to help them plan a funeral for their dead loved one. A person who has a dying family member doesn’t have the strength yet and is not in the right state of mind to think and prepare for a funeral because the person is still alive even though his/her death is inevitable.
Opening this topic will also set a gloomy mood since it is kind of odd and somehow disrespectful when the person is still alive, and you are already planning for his/her funeral. To help your grieving friend, you can free them from the stress of planning for the burial because, as easy as it may seem, planning a funeral is challenging, exhausting, and time-consuming.
To help you plan a funeral for your grieving friend, you can try searching for websites that offer funeral services, such as Memorials.com or AARP.com. We’ve come up with a list to help you out:
1. Check if the deceased has a prepaid plan
Before anything else, you must make sure that the advanced prepaid plan will not put your plans to waste by somehow asking your grieving friend if the dying person has an advanced prepaid plan for his/her funeral. If they do, you can follow up on the schedule and ask them for information, but if they don’t, then follow the next step.
2. Choose a type of service
If the dying person doesn’t have a prepaid plan, you can now focus on your next step, choosing which type of funeral service your grieving friend and his/her family want. Funerals have different programs and styles depending on traditions or religious preferences. You can either go for traditional burial, cremation, formal burial ceremonies, and many more. Try to ask if they have some unique family tradition that involves burial, and you can base your plan on your friend’s answer.
3. The venue of the funeral ceremony
The funeral venue and date will depend on the type of funeral that your grieving friend wants. If they are religious and choose a religious funeral service, you can consider looking for a church or a chapel for the funeral. There will also be an officiant that will guide and help you plan the funeral ceremony. If they have a family tradition of cremating their dead loved one, you can try choosing a calm and peaceful venue for the ceremony. May it be on a mountain or in front of the ocean, as long as it is peaceful, safe, and memorable. The date will be given to you by the company that offered their funeral services to you.
4. Pick the best casket or urn
This next part of the process is one of the most crucial steps in planning a funeral. You need to get complete details on what items, colors, and designs would give a memorable funeral to your grieving friend and his/her family members. You can also add flowers, photographs, and sentimental things to the casket or urn.
5. Headstone
After choosing the casket, what you need to do next is to look for a suitable monument. Headstones are essential because they serve as the dead person’s final words and message to the persons that he/she left behind. You have to know this and ask for the common words that the dead person always says or what sentence or phrase that would let your grieving friend and his/her family member remember their dead loved ones. May it be a quote or a saying, for as long as the message has value and could touch your grieving friend’s heart.
