Frequent Questions

The funeral is a ceremony of proven worth and value for those who mourn. It provides an opportunity for the surviving family members and others who share in a loss to express their love, respect and grief. It permits facing openly and realistically the crisis that a death may present. Through the funeral, the bereaved take that first step toward emotional adjustment to their loss.

A funeral or memorial service provides an opportunity for the living to show respect for the deceased and pay tribute to their life. It provides a framework to freely and openly express our beliefs, feelings, and thoughts about the death of our loved one. It gives us permission to grieve our loss, share in solidarity, and gain strength from others who are experiencing the same loss.

Death At Home

When a death occurs at home and your loved one is not under hospice care, please call 911 and a police officer will respond to the home. The authorities will contact the Medical Examiner as necessary, and the Medical Examiner will either accept or waive jurisdiction, depending on the circumstances. If the Medical Examiner waives jurisdiction, we may come directly to your home. 

If your loved one is under hospice care, call the hospice organization. A hospice nurse will be dispatched to the residence. Upon completion, the funeral home may come to your home. 

Either the police officer or nurse may call us on your behalf.

The following questions will be asked:

- Caller's name and phone number

- Name of the deceased

- Address/directions to the home.

Medical Examiner's Office

When a death occurs and your loved one is in the care of the Medical Examiner, we generally require a written authorization to release your loved one into our care.

The funeral home will contact you and schedule a time that is convenient for you to meet with a funeral director. Proper authorization will be gathered at this time.

Hospitals, Hospice Houses, Nursing Homes

Contact the nurse or physician. The nurse or physician will come to the room and make the pronouncement of death.

Hospice houses and nursing homes will often contact the funeral home directly on your behalf. When a passing occurs in a hospital, please have a family member contact the funeral home directly.

Out of Area

If no formal services will be held in the locale of death (eg. If a loved one dies in Florida). contact your local funeral home (ie. The "Receiving Funeral Home" in Massachusetts) first. The Massachusetts funeral home will contact a provider in the area to act as their agent. Contacting your local provider first can often minimize expenses and save you time, as we can leverage professional networks/contacts to find a reputable funeral service provider on your behalf.

An exception to this, is when immediate cremation will be selected. In these instances, we generally recommend the family selects a local funeral service provider, works with them directly, and then we can assist with any funeral or memorial services as needed at a later date.

If you request immediate assistance, yes. If the family wishes to spend time some final time with the deceased, that is perfectly acceptable. Your funeral director will come when your time is right. 

For residences, nursing homes, and hospice facilities, we arrive within 60-90 minutes from the time of notification. We will provide you and your family with an exact timeline for bringing your loved one into our care.

Funeral directors are both caregivers and administrators. In their administrative duties, they make arrangements for the transportation of the body, complete all necessary paperwork, and implement the choices made by the family regarding the funeral and final disposition of their loved one. As caregives, funeral directors are listeners, advisors, and supporters. They have experience assisting the bereaved in coping with death. Funreal directors are trained to answer questions about grief, recognize when a person is having difficulty coping, and recommend sources of professional help/support groups as requested. 

The funeral director's job is to assist the bereaved in various ways to help them through the loss of a loved one. A funeral director provides bereavement and consolation services for the living, in addition to making arrangements for the cremation, burial, and memorial services for the deceased. He/she fulfills the role of funeral arranger, funeral director, funeral attendant, and embalmer.

The following list is not all-inclusive, but describes some of the major tasks of a funeral director:

• Removal and transfer of the deceased from the place of death to the funeral home
• Professional care of the deceased, including embalming, casketing, and cosmetology
• Consulting with family to make arrangements for the funeral service
• Filing certificates, permits, and other required forms
• Obtaining copies of the death certificate
• Arrangements with the cemetery, crematory, or other places of final disposition
• Creates and publishes the obituary
• Arrangements for clergy, music, flowers, transportation, pallbearers, and special fraternal or military services
• Directs and manages the funeral service and the funeral procession
• Assists the family with death-related claims, including Social Security, VA insurance, grief counseling

Bring the following information to your arrangement conference with the funeral director, to complete death certificates and faciliate various administrative tasks: 

• Deceased's full legal name
• Birth Date
• Birthplace
• Father's Name/Birthplace
• Mother's Name/Birthplace
• Social Security Number
• Veteran's Discharge Paperwork or Claim Number
• Education
• Marital Status
• Contact your clergy. Decide on time and place of funeral or memorial service. This can be done at the funeral home.
• The funeral home will assist you in determining the number of copies of the death certificates you will be needing and can order them for you.
• Decide on appropriate memorial to which gifts may be made (church, hospice, library, charity or school).
• Gather obituary information you want to include such as age, place of birth, cause of death, occupation, college degrees, memberships held, military service , outstanding work, list of survivors in immediate family. Include time and place of services. 

Only you can answer that question. The type of service conducted for the deceased, if not noted in a funeral pre-plan, is decided by the family at the time of passing. The service is usually held at a place of worship or at the funeral home. The service may vary in ritual according to religious denomination or the wishes of the family. The presence of friends at this time is an ackowledgement of friendship and support. 

A private service is by invitation only where selected relatives and a few close friends attend the service. A memorial service is usually a service without the body present and can vary in ceremony and provedures according to the family's community and religious affiliations. A celebration of life may occur at a restaurant, country club, restaurant, or event hall, either following a funeral service, or as a substitute to the funeral service itself.

This is a personal decision, and one that can only be made by you or your family. When considering burial or cremation, it is important to consider things such as religious beliefs, personal preferences, finances, cultural norms, and things like cemetery property. 

Cremation is now the most popular method of disposition in the United States, and is selected because it can be less expensive and allows for the memorial service to be held at a more convenient time in the future when relatives and friends can come together.

It is important to note that you can still have a viewing and funeral service, with cremation following afterwards. We offer a ceremonial 'rental' casket at our funeral home, so you will not need to purchase a casket. 

A funeral service followed by cremation need not be any different from a funeral service followed by a burial. Usually, cremated remains are placed in urn before being committed to a final resting place. The urn may be buried, placed in an indoor or outdoor mausoleum or columbarium, or interred in a special urn garden that many cemeteries provide for cremated remains. The remains may also be scattered, according to state law.

Yes, cremation or burial is merely the disposition of the body. Funeral services are to honor and remember your loved one, regardless of disposition.

There are many reasons to view the deceased. It is part of many cultural and ethnic traditions, and many grief specialists believe that viewing aids the grief process, by helping to recognize the reality and finality of death. Viewing is even encouraged for children, as long as it is their desire to do so, and the process is explained well.

We often hear families say that their loved one "didn't want to be looked at." In these instances, private family viewings may be facilitated for those family members who wish to have that final, sacred time. This may occur privately prior to public services, or privately before cremation occurs. In the latter circumstance, embalming is generally not required.

Hospice organizations are increasingly trained to support and guide families who may wish to wash or dress their deceased loved one as a final act of care. In these instances, private family viewings may also occur at the place of passing, prior to us bringing your loved one into our care.

In considering your own wishes, consider those family members or friends who may want or need to have that time. It is a decision that can only be made once. It can be as simple as just allowing that space for family members who may need it. If no one wishes, that is perfectly fine - the important thing is that you had the conversation.

Embalming sanitizes and preserves the body, slows the decomposition process, and can enhance the appearance of a body that may be disfigured by illness or trauma. It makes it possible to lengthen the time between death and final disposition, allowing family members time to arrange and participate in the type of service most comforting to them. 

Embalming the body enables mourners to view the deceased if they wish. The emotional benefits of viewing the deceased are enourmous, particularly to those having difficulty dealing with the death.

Except in certain special cases, embalming is not required by law. Embalming may be necessary, however, if you select certain funeral arrangements, such as a funeral with viewing. If you do not want embalming, you usually have the right to choose an arrangement that does not require you to pay for it, such as direct cremation or immediate burial.

Certain factors of time, health, and possible legal requirements might make embalming either appropriate or necessary, such as delayed services.

Yes — Depending upon the cemetery's policy, you may be able to save a grave space by having the cremains buried on top of the casketed remains of your spouse, or utilize the space provided next to him/her. Many cemeteries allow for multiple cremated remains to be interred in a single grave space.

Casket burial and cremation are the two main types of disposition available.

Additional options to consider are anatomical donation to a research or educational institution (cremation generally follows), green/natural burial (cemetery dependent), or burial at sea.

Two increasingly popular forms of disposition throughout the United States are alkaline hydrolysis (ie. water/flameless cremation) or terramation (ie. human composting). At the time of this writing, neither form of disposition is currently legal in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Pre-arranging funeral services can be done regardless of the final disposition. Pre-arranging is simply recording your wishes with the funeral home and prefunding if you choose to do so.

In some respects, funerals are a lot like weddings or birthday celebrations. The type and cost will vary according to the tastes and budget of the consumer. A good funeral director will respect your budget and will help you make practical decisions throughout the process.

Operating a funeral home i s 24-hour, labor-intensive business, with extensive facilities, staff, and automobiles. The cost of a funeral not only includes merchandise, like caskets, but the services of a funeral director in making arrangements, filing approrpiate forms, dealing with doctors, ministers, florists, newspapers, and others; and seeing to all the necessary details.

Contary to popular belief, funeral homes are mostly family-owned with a modest profit margin.