North Carolina law requires a 24 hour waiting period after death before the cremation can occur regardless of circumstances. A death certificate needs to be signed by the doctor or medical examiner. This is done by the funeral home. Sometimes there is a delay in getting the certificate signed. Doctors have up to three days to sign it. Lastly, a cremation authorization needs to be signed at the funeral arrangement conference by the funeral director and the immediate next-of-kin or health care power of attorney with funeral disposition rights. Note that the health care power of attorney document is not always accepted at a funeral home. Under North Carolina law, the next-of-kin rights may supersede the health care power of attorney rights even if they have the rights to funeral disposition.
Can I transfer arrangements to another funeral home even if they have already transported my loved one to their facility?
October 21, 2011 – 12:20 pm
Yes. A funeral home cannot hold a body against the family’s will. If you are unhappy or unsure about the way a funeral home is treating you, call another funeral home for a second opinion. You can even have that second funeral home transport your loved one from the first funeral home to the newly chosen funeral home. It may seem burdensome to have to switch, but in the long run it could save you a better experience.
What items are involved in the cost of a funeral?
September 27, 2011 – 4:35 pm
This depends on whether choosing a burial or a cremation and the types of service. Considering all options, the following can be considerations for cost:
Transportation of Deceased to Funeral Home
Arrangement, Clerical Assistance, and Overhead (Professional Services Fee)
Embalming
Dressing and Cosmetics
Casket
Vault (if choosing burial)
Urn (if choosing cremation)
Flowers
Obituary
Prayer Cards, Thank You Cards, Register Book
Visitation Room Rental
Funeral Home Chapel Rental
Clergy Honorarium or Funeral Celebrant Fee
Musician or Cantor Fee
Transportation by Funeral Coach (Hearse) to Cemetery
Limousine
Cemetery Costs (separate from funeral home costs)
Post Funeral Reception (at restaurant or at home)
What is the history of cremation? When did it begin?
September 15, 2011 – 4:13 pm
Historians believe cremations became an uncommon practice in Europe, China, and India, around 3000B.C. and by 1000B.C. it was a common practice. It is known that in Scandinavia, cremation was the favored method of disposition from 2200B.C to 1000A.D. Also, the Greeks performed both earth burial and cremation around the same time.
What makes a cemetery “green”?
September 15, 2011 – 3:58 pm
No metal caskets are allowed in green cemeteries. Wood caskets cannot have any toxic chemical finishes or glues; nor can it have metal parts, or unnatural or dyed fabrics. No vaults or outer burial containers are used. Embalmed remains are not allowed. Sometimes remains may be buried without a casket. The burial grounds are usually in a wooded area or field.
For more information go to: http://www.greenburialalliance.org
What is the difference between a viewing and a visitation?
September 9, 2011 – 12:53 pm
An open casket visitation is called a viewing but sometimes you have heard the terms used interchangeably. The main idea behind a visitation is that the body is present, whether an open or a closed casket. A visitation can be public or it can be private (with only the family attending). A visitation can be held at the home, at your church, at a funeral home or another accommodating facility. You will want to consider what is convenient for you and your family.
Can I Have a Visitation or Viewing Without Embalming?
September 9, 2011 – 12:47 pm
It is commonly mistaken that for a visitation to take place embalming must be done. Embalming, in a very basic definition, is the act of preserving a body by replacing body fluids with a preserving solution (usually an aldehyde and/or alcohol as a solvent). Many funeral homes will not allow a public viewing unless embalming is performed. It is not a state or federal law that embalming be required. It is only a regulation by certain funeral homes. The regulation exists for many reasons including health safety, liability, and other undesired effects of decomposition.
Embalming, historically, has not been green or environmentally friendly but new options exist today with the use of biodegradable chemicals; however, not all funeral homes carry this choice. To credit embalming, in some cases, it does allow for viewable remains that would normally not be viewable. It also allows the body to remain in an abated state of decomposition which may give a family more time, sometimes up to 12 days before burial or cremation.
Finally, an alternative to embalming is the use of dry ice. This is not a replacement for embalming since dry ice does not incorporate restorative art like embalming. Fortunately, under most circumstances, dry ice can be used for viewing the body, having a visitation, or simply preserving the body for burial within 48 – 72 hours after death.
Why have a visitation? What purpose does it serve?
February 21, 2011 – 11:25 am
Sometimes the word funeral is used in place of visitation. While it may seem to be an issue of semantics it could not be further from the truth. The funeral itself is the Ceremony we perform in providing for the final disposition of our dead. Most include visitation in that Ceremony.
I have noticed a trend towards the elimination of the visitation. Too often the visitation is perceived as something that is owed the deceased or an event that must be endured for the benefit of the deceased. Visitation is not for the deceased-it’s for the family.
Under some circumstances it is the only choice as might be the case when neither the deceased nor the family has the financial resources to do anything else. Sometimes the deceased has outlived their friends and family and there would be nobody left to attend the visitation.
But Visitation is for the benefit of the family.
The pain of the loss is at its peak right after the death occurs. Visitation enables the bereaved to have and keep the company of friends and family immediately following the death. This sorrowful time is spent hugging, greeting, recalling good times and warm memories. There is little sorrow here. This is for the living.
Sometime ago a close family friend, influential community leader and prominent businessman George Sakowich died suddenly in his sleep overnight. He was my father’s friend and I remain close friends with his children.
Visitation was 2 days 2-4:30 and 7-9:30. The visitation was attended by at least 1000 people over the 2 days. At first I thought this 2 day visitation would be quite a burden to the family. Yet as I spent each evening there I watched as Mrs. Sakowich and her 3 sons and daughter engaged the myriad of guests and as they did they looked not saddened but invigorated and satisfied. With all the stories told and memories shared they appeared to feel a sense of satisfaction not loss. There was a cohesive sense of love and appreciation for the man we were there for. It was warming evidence of just what visitation can be.
For me personally nothing gives me greater satisfaction then walking through the funeral home on a busy day and I feel as though I am at a Family Reunion and not a funeral.
How Do We Consider All The Family Needs When Planning Mother’s Funeral?
January 17, 2011 – 3:49 pm
This column by Carolyn Hax appeared in the Washington Post on March 5, 2010.
Consider others’ needs in planning mother’s funeral
Dear Carolyn:
My mother has Stage 4 breast cancer and is near death. My family has begun to discuss funeral arrangements. Having lived in their community for 40 years, my parents have a number of friends and acquaintances that my father and siblings wish to invite to a church service and gathering.
I have no interest in participating in a large group ceremony following my mother’s death (although I have told them to go ahead without me if it will help them with their grief). I personally do not find it at all helpful to have a bunch of strangers coming up to me to tell me how sorry they are, etc. My siblings have said we should follow my father’s wishes. I believe they should go forward if it is helpful to them, but I think my mother’s death should be about my grief and paying attention to my needs instead of everyone else’s. What do you think?
R.
I’m sorry about your mom. And certainly you are the one who has to negotiate your grief, so you’re right to consider what you will need, particularly what will and won’t help.
That is only part of the picture, though. As you touch on in your letter, your mom isn’t just your mom. She is also a wife, and a mom to your siblings, and the holder of 40 years’ worth of personal, civic, religious, parental, educational, commercial and incidental connections to people around her.
While funeral services and gatherings do serve as opportunities to acknowledge, express and share grief, they’re also a way for people to honor your mom. By showing up, they say, “She mattered to me.” People appreciate a chance to stand up and count themselves among those who care.
Because to you she is just Mom, it is entirely your decision whether to participate in any public salute to your mother’s life. However, just as your mom was connected, your life affects others as well — and so your decision affects others.
Please consider not just what you need, but also what your mom would want, what your family would appreciate, whether your absence is something they’re going to have to explain to people, and whether that will strain them more than it will strain you to hear how sorry people are for your loss.
These extra considerations are not unrelated to your needs; in fact, they’re not even in conflict with them. We can’t separate the effect we have on others from the rest of an emotional experience.
No matter what you ultimately decide about attending services, that decision will sit better with you if you put care and thought into it — selfless thought primarily, but some selfish thought is okay, too. If you merely react out of pain, then you open yourself to regrets down the road when that pain starts to ease. Your mother’s fight is almost over, but the second half of your struggle is about to begin.
Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation
November 22, 2010 – 2:40 pm
As we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving we do well to remember that we have much to be thankful for. Lincoln’s original Thanksgiving Proclamation was delivered in the midst of the most horrific war in our history. Yet, he reminded American’s there was still much to be thankful for.
Here it is in its entirety:
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation.
1863
The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore.
Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People.
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.
Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the Unites States the Eighty-eighth.
By the President:
Abraham Lincoln
William H. Seward,
Secretary of State
Happy Thanksgiving with special thanks and prayers for our troops!
From Joe Smolenski, Jr. and III