Nothing earth shattering today, just a couple articles and information I noticed about America’s veterans and a notice from the Department of Veteran Affairs.

One of the things we have written about on Funeral Director Daily is that with the growth of direct cremation there tends to be a few cremated remains that just never get picked up by family from your funeral home.  I’ve thought about this and I’ve came to the conclusion that sometimes people just don’t know what to do with the remains so they just leave them at the funeral home, sometimes people just can’t seem to deal with the grief they anticipate by actually possessing their loved ones remains, and finally, I think some families just forget about their loved one.

Most funeral homes will continue to keep possession of the remains, even though they make sure that when families sign a cremation authorization they declare that they are only responsible for holding on to the remains for a specific number of days.  But, what happens when this sheltering of the remains goes on for years and years?

The Department of Veterans Affairs National Cemetery Administration will help you give these remains a proper final resting place if they were eligible for burial at a National Cemetery.  They will even pay you some of the costs to get the remains to the cemetery.  To learn more about this process you can access information here.

Secondly, we’ve have told you many times about Wreaths Across America where in December wreaths are laid on the graves of our nation’s veteran heroes.  I just happened to notice this article about how the organization also works with volunteers so that the wreaths get a proper disposal.  You can read about the effort at Arlington National Cemetery here.

[wpforms id=”436″ title=”true” description=”true”]