(989) 791-4515 3775 North Center Road , Saginaw MI
Many families today want a service that celebrates the life of their loved one. We introduce them to the concept of a celebration of life and provide support in designing a life celebration that is as unique as the life of their loved one.
We always enjoy working together with families in
planning a celebration of life for their loved ones. While it can be a challenge to put together an event that both pays tribute to and celebrates the life and spirit of a complex individual, it's also one of the most rewarding things any one of us can do for someone we've loved and lost.
Sarah York opens her beautifully-crafted book,
Remembering Well , with the very personal story about how her family chose to pay tribute to her mother. "
My mother died in April 1983... She didn't want a funeral. 'Get together and have a party,' she had said when the topic was allowed to come up." However, she was quick to tell readers that the survivors did not honor the request. "We needed the ritual. We needed to say good-bye, but we also needed a ritual that would honor her spirit and would be faithful to her values and beliefs."
When Ms. York acknowledges the position of her family—that they needed not a party but a ritual—she teaches us all something important: the celebration of life events we plan with families should be shaped as much by their own emotional and spiritual needs as their desire to celebrate the life lived.
Celebrations of life are similar to memorial services, which can be described as a hybrid event: combining the flexibility of a celebration of life with many of the activities of a traditional funeral order-of-service.
There's more room for creativity in a celebration of life than a funeral. Since celebrations of life are commonly held after the individual's physical remains have been cared for through burial or cremation, there is much more time available to plan the event. And without doubt, this allows you to make better decisions about how you'd like to celebrate the life of someone you dearly loved.
It's interesting; funerals and celebrations of life have much in common, yet they often appear very different. Each is a ceremony; a gathering of people who share a common loss. It's just that one is more rooted in tradition, while the other is the result of recent changes in social values. But both serve to do three things:
Yet they achieve those things in very different ways. First, let's take a closer look at what most of us commonly see as very traditional
funerals.
If you'd like to know more about the history of funerals in the United States, you may like to visit the website of the National Museum of Funeral History . But for now, it's enough to know that a funeral service traditionally has these three distinct components.
It is also important to note that if you have chosen cremation, you can still do a celebration of life for your loved one.
(989) 791-4515
Snow Funeral Home
3775 North Center Road
Saginaw, MI 48603
Email: staff@snowfuneralhome.net