Funerals or memorial services and cremations are designed to handle the practical needs of managing a deceased person, religious rites, and the emotional needs of friends and family. Choosing a Houston cremation along with a funeral or memorial service allows families to take advantage of the low cost of cremation over burial while still gaining the benefit of a formal process of saying goodbye and allowing loved ones to remember together and support each other as they grieve.
When a direct cremation is chosen (a Houston cremation without a funeral or memorial service) other steps may, and should, be taken to say goodbye, to remember, and to support one another. These steps are important to the grieving and healing process for those left behind.
A well-chosen cremation memorial meets many of these needs. Even the process of choosing a memorial is healing as it gives family the opportunity to work together to address death while remembering a loved one and what was special about them. For some families, it is helpful to act on behalf of their deceased loved one. For example, a family may participate in a charitable event that either helps others with the same health problems from which the deceased suffered or to volunteer for events that were meaningful to the deceased. If a loved one died of breast cancer, families might memorialize her by participating in a Race for the Cure.
Planning a physical item or place to memorialize the deceased is another option. This can be as extravagant as a monument or as simple as a tree grown in the backyard. In any case, it is a place to go and spend time with the memory of the person you love. This place can be a formal location that will be maintained in perpetuity as happens when you place cremated remains in a columbarium or deploy remains to the Neptune Memorial Reef off the coast of Florida.
Memorialization can take place within the home as well. A well chosen cremation urn for cremated remains both represents the deceased and offers a focal spot for remembrance and reflection. What’s important is to choose a cremation memorial of meaning to you, something that properly represents the deceased and offers a way to remember.
