Honoring the Memory of Your Loved One
No matter what the circumstances are surrounding the death, the loss is forever a part of you from that point forward. Not knowing their final wishes can compound the heartbreak and make honoring their memory more difficult. Familial disagreements on how to memorialize the person also can make a tragic time more intense and complicated. Once the person has passed, try not to let the emotional turmoil of any of these scenarios taint your final memories of them. Here are a few suggestions from Adult Care Advisors of ways to honor your loved one while also dealing with your own grief.
Avoid Extra Conflicts
The loss of a loved one can make us prone to irrational thinking or expose family conflicts. If you are the executor, carry out the person’s wishes to the best of your physical and financial abilities, in a way that is in alignment with your own belief system. If the deceased chose you to handle their final arrangements, they placed a trust in you to carry out their wishes as you understood them, or to decide on their behalf if their wishes were not known.
If you have the responsibility through kinship or legal avenues, it is still recommended that you try to honor the wishes of the deceased to the best of your abilities. If you are not the executor, let the person who is determine how best to handle things, unless your input is solicited. This can be frustrating, especially if you feel it is not the way your loved one would have wanted things. However, the executor has been given the legal responsibility to make these final decisions and creating conflict over it is not likely to improve the situation for anyone. Final arrangements are to pay homage to the deceased, and it is important not to lose sight of that regardless of the circumstances.
In Loving Memory
Typically a memorial service or funeral will be planned in the days following the loss. While cost can certainly impact what you choose to do with the remains and how a service is carried out, most funeral homes and crematoriums are sensitive to the vulnerability of folks securing their services and will find a solution to match your budget.
Religious leaders from any denomination can also be helpful when it comes to finding the right solution for your circumstances. If you’d like a service that is more personal and intimate, consider holding it at home. Again, the service can be configured to meet any needs or budget, but a home provides a warmer and more loving environment to mourn the loss. Be sure to ask others for help and try not to take on the entire planning yourself.
If you’re looking for a special way to honor your loved one, finding bronze plaques for buildings might be the way to go. You can use high quality lettering to spell out your loved one’s name, as well as a short message or quote. You could display that plaque in your own home, or at another location or place of work they were known to frequent. This sort of gesture can help others through their grieving process, as well.
While it is important that any last rites appropriately honor the deceased loved one, the enormity of the task coupled with the loss can lead to exhaustion. For those not bound to religious rites of passage, postponing the service is acceptable to meet the needs of those closest to the person lost, or to enable their final wishes to be honored.
Create a Legacy
Many people choose to honor their departed loved one by establishing scholarships or foundations to continue a passion for the deceased. This can be a natural extension of their professional or philanthropic work. For instance, the family of a passionate teacher might choose to establish a scholarship fund in their name. You might find the desire to start a nonprofit organization to continue their impact or to turn their life into a legacy. If you are passionate about this cause, it is easier to solicit and maintain funding to maintain the organization through donors, corporate sponsors, events, or even a membership fee.
Regardless of the complexities involved in the passing of your loved one, it is important to exercise appropriate responses to the situations that follow. Excessive drama or disagreements over final arrangements can lead to long-term rifts that are difficult to repair. Focusing on the memory of your loved one can help ease the burden of being the executor and the challenges that may exist if you are not. Anyone is allowed to commemorate a loved one, and you don’t need to be in control of the final arrangements in order to arrange a memorial service that will help you grieve.
Adult Care Advisors is proud to offer free, personalized advice to seniors throughout New Jersey. Check out our Facebook page or call 732-792-6407.