Five Tips for Helping Your Senior Plan Her Funeral
More and more aging adults are interested in participating in their funeral arrangements. This is partially because they want to have a say in what happens, but it also has to do with sparing you making these types of decisions on your own.
Get Started Sooner Rather than Later
This is not a fun conversation, honestly, but it’s one that you need to have with your aging adult. If you don’t know her final wishes, you’re not going to be able to meet them. Putting off the conversation is not going to make it any easier, though. It’s entirely possible your senior has wanted to talk about this with you but hasn’t wanted to upset you. Broach the topic gently and see where you stand.
Take Your Time
Even though you don’t want to wait, that doesn’t mean that you have to plan everything in one afternoon. Take your time discussing what it is that your senior wants and how you can go about making that happen for her. Funerals involve hundreds of tiny decisions and you don’t want to rush any of this.
Explore Your Options
Burials have come a long way from a simple pine box in a family cemetery. While you might have access to a family cemetery or plot, your elderly family member may have other ideas. Cremation, is definitely an option, which also brings up the question about whether and where your senior wants her ashes to be stored or scattered. Or perhaps she’s interested in a green burial. There is a lot to explore.
Take Notes
It’s really important that you keep track of all the decisions you and your senior make. The best way to do this is probably going to be by keeping notes about what you and your elderly family member decide and where you need to go to access a specific service.
Put it All Together
Once you have finalized as much as possible, it’s time to put it all together. Having an overview of everything that your elderly family member wants to include in her memorial and funeral is going to help you to see whether you’ve left anything out or if there are additional details that need addressing.
End-of-life care providers can often help with these sorts of plans, too. They can help to put you and your senior in touch with resources that make planning your elderly family member’s funeral easier on you both.
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