Planning your end-of-life body treatments is vital to ensuring you get everything you want out of them. Nobody wants to leave their family guessing and risk getting something they don’t like, but many are uncomfortable with idea of taking time to plan.
Two of the top options many think of are funerals and cremations! If you can’t decide between the two, here’s everything you need to know.
How is the Average Buried Body Handled?
If someone decides they want their remains to be buried whole, there are some steps that are followed. These include care for the body, like bathing and dressing, refrigerating the body to slow the natural processes, and commonly embalming before burial.
Even if you don’t have an open-casket funeral, many funeral homes will try to tell you that embalming is a necessary step, which just adds cost and time to your family. Others prefer to simply wrap their family in a shroud and bury their loved ones in that.
This depends on personal taste. You can bury most cremated bodies, but it depends on the choices of the individual before they pass and what their family wants for the ashes.
What Does Cremation Entail?
Cremation is a process that takes ashes to ashes and dust to dust into its most literal form. Through applying incredible amounts of heat, cremation transforms bodies into fine dust and powder, removing any moisture that adds weight or bulk to our bodies. This is a fantastic method because it requires our bodies to take up far less space and makes it so family members can keep a piece of us with them.
What Differences Can Come From This?
There are plenty of large differences that stand out immediately. First of all, your body can’t be physically displayed if you’ve already been cremated. You may choose to have a wake before the cremation, but after, you’d clearly need a memorial instead. A great perk is that the average cost of cremation is far less expensive than the average cost of a funeral! Many families also skip wakes and memorials if the body is cremated, so they can have a ceremony where they’ll scatter the ashes instead.
How Can I Celebrate My End of Life Without a Funeral?
If you want to celebrate your end of life without having to deal with a funeral, there are a few options! Some families and loved ones will throw a celebration of life event, while others will have a funeral as usual but without the body.
The best way to help your legacy go on, regardless of the services, is to consider donating your body to science. This allows future medical professionals to practice, learn about the human body, and become better in their prospective field. This is the largest gift anyone can give and means a lot to the worlds of science and health.
Funerals and Cremation Are a Part of Everyones’ Lives
There’s no way to help the fact that we all eventually die, but what you can do is plan so your legacy lives on. Consider how you want your funeral and end-of-life care to go and let a legal professional know soon.
