Earlier in August Funeral Director Daily penned an article about being “creative” in your work about memorializing those who you are entrusted to care for.  The article, which you can read here, went so far as to start considering the room where you discuss situations with families that you are serving as the “Creative Room” rather than the “Arrangement Room”.

That article probably produced more emails to me than any other article that I have written in the past year.  Every single comment that I received was positive about moving in that direction and concurred with what I had hypothesized. . . “That families that come to you are no longer looking for “arrangements” for a funeral, but are looking for “appropriate, creative” ways to memorialize an individual’s life.

I also commented in that article that “Memorialization” is not a time-finite issue.  It’s no longer the “old days” where the family’s memorialization of their loved one ends with the funeral lunch.  I mentioned my own experience where I continue to memorialize my father with experiences at his grave to this day —  47 years after his death.

So, be creative. . . . and let your family clientele know that their memorialization does not end in 7 to 10 days.  As you work with them let the canvas of creativity be infinite.  It not only will, more than likely, help your client families create the experience that they want, but it will probably also bring more to your bottom line. . . . especially in this day of more and more direct cremations with no services.

One of my readers of that article sent me a website for a company called Life Celebration Inc.  They are in the business — and have been for over a decade — of helping funeral directors be creative in honoring these lives we are talking about.  I would suggest that you go to their website here and watch the two-minute video of their teams in action.

Related Article — “Celebrations of Life” increasingly replacing traditional funerals in UK, study shows.  The Guardian (Great Britain)

More news from the world of Death Care:

• One of Oregon’s most prominent families appears to want another family’s burial plot.  Willamette Week (OR)
• Elgin new cemetery plans going before Moray Council.  The Northern Scot (Scotland)

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