It can be awful to see loved ones grieving when you’re far away from them, either in a different town or even in a different country, even though no one likes to see their friends, loved ones, or family in pain after a loss and military service at a funeral home in Clarksville, TN.

If you’re looking for ways to be there for someone in grief even from halfway around the world, these tips are here to help inspire you. To begin, plan a visit. You might not be able to see and help them in person right now, but you can certainly plan a visit. This is especially helpful since the grieving process doesn’t end once the service is over, so the bereaved might need extra love and support a few months down the line after other people have moved on. You can also use technology. We are so lucky to live in a modern world with almost endless ways of staying in touch with people despite physical distance.

From Facebook and Instagram to video chatting, and even the classic telephone, use technology to reach out to the bereaved. Reach out when you can so they know you’re available, but don’t be pushy. Also, don’t feel like you have to talk or have meaningful words of encouragement. The best thing you can do for your friend is just to listen. What about donating or ordering deliveries? Cremations and funerals do cost money, and it might be very helpful for you to donate money to help the bereaved with some of the costs.

Don’t ask what you can do. The last thing someone in grief wants to do is field a bunch of questions. So, instead of asking what you can do to help, just do it. Be proactive, whether that means sending over a cleaning service, flowers or food or paying for a grocery delivery. And remember, while it’s never preferable to be far away from someone when they’re grieving, it is possible to provide some comfort even though you’re apart. You can also donate in the deceased’s memory. Choose a cause that was important to the deceased and let the bereaved know about your donation so they can feel something good has come from their loss.

Even a small gesture can mean a world of difference to someone in grief. And, thanks to modern delivery services, it’s never been easier to send those small gestures even from across an ocean. Place an order for grocery delivery so they don’t have to worry about shopping or order them some food from their favorite take out place. You can also send flowers, candy, gift baskets, thoughtful gifts like books, gift cards, and a whole host of other delivery items to show you care and think about them in their time of loss.

Do you want to learn more tips or information about Clarksville, TN funeral homes or military services? We are here to help. We can offer you more information beyond these tips for how to help your family member or friend when they’ve lost someone. Call or visit us today.

Most wakes held after funeral home services in Clarksville, TN could benefit from some lovely fresh flowers, especially if it’s a veteran’s service. Choosing a florist is a big part of planning a service, and it can be a tricky thing to do as there are a lot of things you have to consider when looking for florists sure that you’re happy with the flowers you get to honor your lost loved one.

Look online at Pinterest, check out photos of other services, and talk with funeral directors to come up with a general idea of what you want your flowers to look like. This way you can show potential florists your inspiration photos to see if they will be able to give you what you want. Don’t forget to think about budget or to do some research. Flowers don’t come cheap, so it’s important that you have a good idea of your budget before you begin talking with florists. This way you can eliminate options quickly if they are out of your price range, so you don’t get you heart broken by loving flowers that are too expensive.

You also need to start looking as soon as you can. It’s never too early to start checking out florists. The more time you give yourself for your search the less frantic your search will be. Plus, these days, florists can book up very early. Start early to make sure you have plenty of time to do research, get inspiration, interview different options, and make sure the one you pick is still available. You can’t choose a florist until you know what you want. Take some time to research the different florists in your area. Look at websites, check out Instagram pages, and read as many reviews as you can get your hands on. Don’t forget to check out pricing, too. This way you can quickly check options off your list if they don’t immediately gel with your budget or if they have lots of negative reviews.

You can also ask your funeral home and other vendors about different florists as many vendors work with one another often and can offer valuable insight into who is reliable, who does good work and who will be a good fit. Finally, make some calls. While research is important, it’s not the only way you should decide on a florist. Don’t be afraid to pick up the phone to chat with various options or, better yet, get in the car and go visit them and their shop to see some work in person. Your florist will be a big part of your lost loved one’s service, so you want to make sure you have complementing personalities and work types. That can only be determined with an interview.

Use these tips to find a great florist for your lost loved one’s service, but, most of all, take your time and don’t feel like you have to go with the first florist you meet. It’s a big decision.

We are here to help if you need more guidance on florists, veteran’s service or Clarksville, TN funeral homes. We’re happy to do whatever we can to help you in your time of loss, so call or visit us today.

While it’s never easy to think about your eventual passing, preplanning your cremation service in Clarksville, TN is one of the best things you can do for your family, and for yourself. After all, losing a loved one is hard enough without having to plan, execute and pay for a service.

Preplanning for your funeral or memorial can help both you and your loved ones in many different ways. The benefits of preplanning a service include:

• · Easing Your Family’s Burden: Let your family know exactly what you want for your funeral so they don’t have to guess what to do after you’re gone, or spend time making painful decisions when they should be grieving with loved ones.
• · Creating a Meaningful Service: Memorial and funeral services are an important part of the grieving process, but your loved ones might miss out on the important benefits if they are too busy planning the event. Preplan so they don’t have to.
• · Maintaining Self-Reliance: Taking charge of your memorial and funeral services allows you to maintain control and independence when you might otherwise lose them. This is good for your mental health at the end of your life and gives you more self-reliance.
• · Making Sure Your Wishes Are Met: Make sure you get the exact funeral or memorial service you want by taking care of the details and clearly laying them out for your friends and family. This way they won’t be able to argue or disagree.
• · Financial Responsibility: You can plan for how to cover the funeral costs in advance to make it easier for your family’s bank accounts and stress levels. Look into funeral insurance or funeral trusts to help ensure financial ease for your cremation and service.

These are just a few of the ways preplanning can help both you and your family. But how do you go about preplanning a funeral or cremation service?

The first step is to simply start making some choices. Think about what you want for your funeral or memorial, and be prepared to make choices such as:

• Choose what to do with your remains, from burial and scattering to more non-traditional methods of body disposal like a biodegradable urn or water internment.
• Pick out your service theme, like military, religious, or non-traditional.
•  Choose the funeral home.
• Detail memorial or funeral specifications like preferred music, desired readings, special decorations, and video displays.
• Choose your final resting place. There are a ton of options, but the main ones include: a family plot or mausoleum, columbarium, or cremation urn.

Preplanning your cremation service isn’t as hard or overwhelming as you would think once you get started, and it can only help you and your loved ones after your death.

As a Clarksville, TN cremation service provider, we are here to help if you do need more assistance with preplanning. We have years of experience with preplanning and would be happy to help you however we can. Please stop by and visit us today for more information.

Death is and always will be hard, but the difficulty is often compounded by the difficulties that come with arranging a veteran’s service at a funeral home in Clarksville, TN. Learn more about this process of arranging a funeral so you can be better prepared when faced the loss of a loved one.

There are eight main steps that everyone must follow after a death to arrange a funeral:

1. Report the Death – If the death is at a hospital, nursing home, or hospice, the officials there will know what to do and will make the report for you. If you are at home, or have no other options, call 911.
2. Prepare to Work with a Funeral Director – You will need the assistance of a funeral director to complete the death certificate, transport and store the body. Take note if the deceased planned for his or her funeral or cremation and be prepared to relay these wishes to the director.
3. Choose the Service – There are several service options you need to be prepared to choose from such as funerals, in which the service is held before the body is cremated or buried and the body is present, or memorials, in which the service is help after the body is buried or cremated and therefore not present.
4. Make Cemetery Arrangements – If you choose to inter the remains after the funeral or cremation, you will need to make cemetery arrangements. Decide where the burial will take place, and if necessary, purchase a plot. If you’re unsure where to start, your funeral director or cremation assistant will most likely be affiliated with a cemetery and can help you find a plot. You could also check with your church, synagogue or other place of worship for further guidance.
5. Plan the Funeral Service – Feel free to get creative when making memorial or funeral service arrangements to make the service personal and meaningful. Flowers, music, pre or post service events and other special touches help make the service personal for you and the deceased.
6. Make Body Transportation Arrangements – You will need to make arrangements for the body to be transported from the place of death to the funeral home, and also to the cemetery if you choose burial, as well as inform the family and write a death notice.
7. Make the Death Announcement – Personally inform all close family, friends and loved ones of the death, ideally over the phone or in person. If you’re nervous, take the time to write a script to help you make key points. Don’t forget to write and release a death notice to notify the rest of the friends, coworkers, associates etc.
8. Stay Organized – You should make a list of what you need to accomplish before the service to help you stay organized and not forget anything important. This list could include your attire, personal items or collecting photos.

Looking for more guidance on arranging funerals and veteran’s services? As a Clarksville, TN funeral home, we have the experience necessary to help guide you. Stop by and visit us or give us a call today.

How can you get through a sudden, unexpected pain and loss of your military service member? Losing a loved one and planning a service at a funeral home in Clarksville, TN is always hard, but it’s especially challenging when that loss is sudden and unexpected.

While everyone’s grief journey is different in both presentation and length and no one can truly understand someone else’s pain, there are certain thing you can do to make a sudden bereavement easier.

Here are some helpful tips for dealing with the sudden death of a loved one. To begin, spend time with others. It can be so easy to withdraw from friends, coworkers, and family after going through a loss. However, talking and spending time with other people can be a big help. Not only is being around other people comforting, but it can help make your grief more manageable. It does this through allowing you to share your feelings which in turn can help you come to terms with your loss.

It also accomplishes this by giving you space to reminisce and receive emotional support. Next, try and get back into your regular routine. It might seem impossible, but life will go on after you lose a loved one. As tough as it might be, getting back to your everyday routines can help relieve your grief. Go back to work if you feel ready. If not, try and continue your normal morning and evening routines.

Hold family dinners, take the kids to school, and don’t be afraid to acknowledge how these routines have changed because of the loss. Also, everyone who experiences a sudden loss will most likely also experience a whirlwind of emotions from anger and shock to disbelief, guilt and sadness. These tough emotions won’t follow a certain timeline as everyone grieves at their own pace. Therefore, it’s important to be prepared to endure difficult feelings for an undetermined amount of time. Being aware of that fact will make dealing with the situation simpler, if not easier. It’s natural for people to want to help when someone they know is going through a loss. While you might not feel up to interacting with others, it’s probably true that you will need that help. From meals and assistance with household chores to help planning services, help is necessary when you’re going through a loss. Don’t be embarrassed or afraid to accept it. Also, don’t be embarrassed to seek out help when you need it.

Finally, seeking professional help for dealing with the psychological and physical symptoms of grief is not only often incredibly beneficial but it’s also often necessary. When a loved one dies suddenly, it can be a traumatic experience like getting in a severe car accident or spending time in a war zone. There isn’t shame in a veteran or car accident survivor getting help, so why would there be in someone going through a loss getting help?

Do you want more information on grief, military services, or Clarksville, TN funeral homes? We are here for you, so call or visit us today to learn more.

Services at funeral homes in Clarksville, TN and, in fact, the entire funeral service industry are built on traditions. Most of these traditions originated in religion, be it Judaism, Christianity, or another belief system. But with religion on a downslide, what will take the place of these traditions? How can those suffering from a loss find richness and meaning in death? Rituals might be the answer.

A ritual is defined “a repeated pattern of behavior performed at specified times”, and it often includes the use of symbols, rites and actions.” Rituals have long been used in both religious and general cultural situations. Take, for example, Día De Los Muertos, visiting a lost loved one at a cemetery, or performing Last Rites on someone who is dying. All of these rituals fit the definition, but they also offer lots of benefits for those that perform them. Rituals are powerful because they offer a wide range of benefits.

Specifically, they give us space to process a loss. In a grief study performed by Harvard University, researched discovered that it wasn’t just traditional rituals that helped people going through a loss. They also learned that personal rituals played a large role in helping with grief. These personal rituals might seem useless or silly to the outside word, but to the mourner they had immense meaning and healing power. Little acts from washing a car to going for a walk have the bereaved space to emotionally process the loss. Though they reported feeling sad during the ritual itself, they mostly reported feeling better and lighter afterwards.

Rituals give us a feeling of control. We don’t have much control over life or death, but rituals help us feel like we have control, which can go a long way towards comforting us. In that same Harvard study, the participants that performed a ritual reported feeling that ““things were in check’ and less likely to feel ‘helpless’, ‘powerless’, and ‘out of control’.” Rituals also bring people together. As said by expert Tracey Wallace from Eterneva, “Mourning rituals and ceremonies are meant to bring people together, to take the hands of those mourning the loss and lead them astray from isolation”.  People often feel along after losing a loved one, but rituals can help them feel connected to other people and part of a community.

As The Conversation wrote, “Using familiar words and actions in an unfamiliar situation can help us find our way through it”. During a grief study done by Harvard, the scientists discovered that people who experienced little or no grief symptoms within one month of losing someone they loved all performed rituals. The experts believe that the rituals helped with the grief symptoms because they gave the bereaved a chance to mourn the loss, celebrate the life, and process their grief.

Remember, rituals have incredible power for healing after a loss. We are here to help if you want to learn more about common rituals or Clarksville, TN funeral homes. Call or visit us today.