Loan For Funeral Expenses?

First off, the Funeral Consumers Alliance, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, does not recommend taking out a loan to finance a funeral, due to the high interest rates these loans often come with. 

That said, the average cost of a funeral was $7,360 in 2017, according to the National Funeral Directors Association. It’s a staggering amount of money for most people, but especially those in the midst of grieving a loved one and perhaps navigating financial uncertainty elsewhere. If a funeral cannot be paid for out of pocket or with life insurance, then surviving family members might find themselves looking at personal loans as a measure of last resort. 

We agree that personal loans should be an absolute last resort when facing funeral costs, but if you believe they are necessary for your circumstances, you should at least request loan estimates from multiple lenders to get a rate and terms that will cause as little additional hardship down the line as possible. 

ForeverMissed Memorials Offers a Virtual Place to Grieve when Funerals are Not Permitted

One of the most painful consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic is that families are forced to remain apart during especially challenging times of pain and loss. ForeverMissed is proud to offer a community of support where people can collect and share memories of their loved ones who have passed away.

Online memorials can’t ever take the place of traditional funerals and memorials services. We believe strongly, though, in the value of a virtual community of support and remembrance to help people navigate a grief process complicated by an uncertain world.
NEW YORK (PRWEB) APRIL 29, 2020

ForeverMissed Online Memorials recognizes that one of the most painful consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic is that families are forced to remain apart during especially challenging times of pain and loss. COVID-19 victims, as well as victims of other illnesses and injuries, are dying alone during a global health crisis and are being mourned without traditional funerals. ForeverMissed is proud to offer a community of support where people can collect and share memories of their loved ones who have passed away. These lasting, virtual memorial pages can be shared so that the whole family can collaborate to preserve memories and celebrate lives lost, and families of COVID-19 victims receive a free full site access for one year.

“We all have a basic human need to gather together and express emotions during times of pain and loss,” says Oleg Andelman, Founder of ForeverMissed Memorials. “Families need and deserve a chance to say goodbye, and their loved ones deserve to be celebrated and remembered. We are proud to offer a place where people can come together to grieve their losses during an unprecedented time in our world when funerals simply aren’t possible.”

For more than a decade, ForeverMissed has offered an important outlet for grieving families and communities to gather in commiseration, celebration, and healing. Now more than ever, these virtual tools can offer a way forward for those who lack the closure a funeral typically brings. The company created a new COVID-19 page where thousands of daily visitors have paid collective tribute to the victims of this ongoing pandemic.

“Online memorials can’t ever take the place of traditional funerals and memorials services,” says Andelman. “We believe strongly, though, in the value of a virtual community of support and remembrance to help people navigate a grief process complicated by an uncertain world. Our users often tell us their online memorial pages help them cope with deep grief, and we are privileged to offer this service.”

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold, the company has plans to roll-out enhanced offerings designed to better serve those in need during this trying time.

About ForeverMissed Online Memorials

ForeverMissed.com was designed with the goal of connecting families separated by distance as they grieved common losses of loved ones. With nearly 150,000 memorial pages and more than two million posted tributes, ForeverMissed is a trusted source for many people traveling grief journeys. Users can choose public or private memorial pages under a variety of paid service plans, where they can add photographs, memories, music, and more in a secure and easy-to-use virtual format. The free, one-year Premium subscription for families of COVID-19 victims is a $64.99 value. For more information, as well as customer testimonials, visit https://www.forevermissed.com/.

Farewell To Charlie Daniels

Funeral directors balance comforting care with coronavirus restrictions.

On Friday the 13th, a 44-year-old college dean from Arden Hills died suddenly of a heart attack.

The family began the process of planning his funeral. His death was sudden and his life had touched many people. The funeral would be large. There would be lots of hugging, kissing, crying and hand-holding. People would travel in from out of state to attend. Meals would be shared. The family would be enveloped in support.

Then came the COVID-19 guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention restricting groups over 250 from gathering. Then 50. Now 10. The funeral director was torn between following the guidelines and helping the family.

“Our hearts are aching in not being able to help people in the way that we are trained to do,” said Richard Purcell, owner of Holcomb-Henry-Boom-Purcell funeral home in St. Paul.

Purcell said despite the guidelines, he had no intention of telling the family they couldn’t mourn their loved one. In the end, he didn’t have to.

“The church was feeling uncomfortable having a social gathering given the fact of the state of affairs regarding COVID-19,” he said. The memorial would be moved to a later, undetermined date. There would still be a visitation, but the funeral home would limit the amount of people gathering with the family by having the mourners take turns.

VIRTUAL CONDOLENCES AND WEBCASTING

Other funeral directors are looking at webcasting services and encouraging people to use online message boards to virtually offer their condolences.

Chris Robinson, owner of Robinson Funeral Home in Easley, S.C., is also a board member for the National Funeral Directors Association. He’s seen other families break up the traditional funeral process, hoping to give their loved one a proper send off once the virus crisis is past.

“One of the families we’re currently serving is very active in the community and well known,” he said. “It’s heartbreaking because they can’t have a meaningful ceremony at this time. They’ve elected to have a private graveside service now, and later, when the ban is lifted, they will have a memorial service and visitation.”

GRIEF INTERRUPTED
Purcell said prolonging the grieving process will be hard on families.

“Psychologically there’s a need for basic human support,” he said. “People are still experiencing grief and loss and the need for sharing and having the comfort of friends and family and loved ones. That is very healing and therapeutic. That interaction is a gift. You can’t get it virtually. You can’t get it without being present.”

Robinson said funeral staff are struggling with giving comfort.

“We take this very seriously,” he said. “We have to work a balancing act. We have posted signs throughout our building about avoiding personal contact like shaking hands and hugging. I saw something somewhere where a smile or a nod is not the same, but it kind of gets the message across that you’re concerned, but you’re also respectful of the health environment. Sometimes I do a slight bow just to let them know I’m not being rude.”

EMBALMING THE INFECTED
Funeral directors have more on their minds than helping the grieving, such as how to deal with the remains of those who died from COVID-19 and what to do if there’s an outbreak that strains their resources.

On March 16, the CDC had a phone conference with the NFDA hoping to answer questions funeral directors may have regarding embalming, keeping their staff safe, how to handle bodies coming in from overseas and guidelines for visitations.

At this time, the CDC states there is currently no known risk associated with being in the same room at a funeral or visitation service with the body of someone who died of COVID-19, but adds that people should consider not touching the body of someone who has died of the virus.

Those who are ill and at-risk, such as the elderly and immune-compromised, should be encouraged to stay home. Funeral homes are encouraged to urge attendees to practice social distancing, hand hygiene and covering coughs and sneezes.

WORST CASE SCENARIO
And what happens if there is an outbreak that overwhelms funeral homes? That’s where the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Teams or DMORTs, come in.

DMORTs are composed of funeral directors, medical examiners, pathologists, forensic anthropologists, finger print specialists, forensic odontologists, dental assistants, administrative specialists, and security specialists. They are deployed to supplement federal, state, local, tribal and territorial resources at the request of local authorities.

DMORTs, which fall under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, are activated in response to large scale disasters to assist in the identification of deceased individuals and storage of the bodies pending the bodies being claimed.

The teams were organized in the 1980s by the NFDA and were activated during the 9/11 disaster. In 2006, the teams operated the Find Family National Call Center in Baton Rouge, La. during Hurrricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita helping to locate the 13,000 people reported missing.

Robinson said they are all hoping that things will not develop into a health crisis like Italy and China have experienced.

“It’s a tough time,” he said. “But the situation could become very severe if we don’t follow these guidelines now.”

On Friday the 13th, a 44-year-old college dean from Arden Hills died suddenly of a heart attack.

Officiating An Online Funeral

I have officiated at funerals for 16 years in my community. As a busy working mother, I am loving and patient, organized and a wizard at time management. As a rabbi, I am serious, focused and available to families around the clock. Real life doesn’t have office hours.

Hospice work is my niche, so I spend a lot of time with grieving families. Usually I am the calm presence in the room, the one who isn’t shaking.

Not now. This time, I was all by myself, in my home office, a wreck. A kind and gentle 70-year-old man named Saul had passed away. He had been in a rehab facility working on walking and building back his strength after a long stint in the hospital. He was optimistic about his recovery. When I visited with him, he always told me he couldn’t wait to get back home.

Then COVID-19 came. It swept through the halls of the rehab facility like the angel of death. Saul, working so hard to recover, got sick, and he wasn’t strong enough to fight off the coronavirus.

Saul’s family chose an online service rather than gathering at the cemetery for a few reasons. First, they feared the coronavirus. Second, it allowed more people to attend. The Michigan Board of Rabbis had agreed that we should follow federal guidelines, as well as our own governor’s orders, and that meant services were graveside only, with fewer than 10 people allowed to attend.

As clergy, I felt gutted that we could not perform so many of the rituals that Judaism prescribes for mourning. When a loved one dies, we tear our clothes or wear a torn black ribbon for the seven days following a death, the period of shiva. Before coronavirus, I would stand in front of a mourner, pin the little ribbon onto their clothes, walk them through the prayer that is recited and give them a hug.

Now I couldn’t even come within arm’s length and had to walk mourners through the ritual from at least 6 feet away. My instinct is to reach out and hold someone’s hand or embrace them, an unconscious rabbinic reflex to offer physical as well as spiritual comfort. Now I found myself recoiling, slightly embarrassed that I’d so easily forgotten about social distancing rules.

Our tradition usually provides space for friends and family to greet mourners before the services. People form a line and wait quietly to offer their condolences. This sacred offering is impossible now, so mourners are left to look at each other, perhaps put their hands on their hearts in a gesture of mutual love.

At an e-funeral, so many elements would be out of my control. What if I froze ― literally or figuratively? What if one of my children knocked on the door to my workspace, crying? What if the attendees accidentally un-muted themselves? There is one thing that all rabbis want when they are officiating at an event: control.

It isn’t about being a control freak, it is about my role as comforter in chief. My role is to make the service as meaningful as possible, and as stress-free as possible, using the traditional words and customs that are soothing for the soul. I feared I wouldn’t be able to provide cyber-comfort.

About an hour before the service was set to begin, I changed out of my quarantine uniform of sweats and a hoodie and into nicer yoga pants and a black sweater. They’d only see me from the chest up anyway, so why not stay comfortable? I put on some makeup and set out to arrange my “pulpit.” I piled up a bunch of books and set my computer on top. I nervously tinkered with the lighting for half an hour.

Pre-pandemic, I was a happy Luddite. I still write by hand when talking to families about a eulogy. Now I was responsible for one of the most sacred moments in a person’s lifecycle, and I had to hand over my control to my laptop.

Loss and Grief

HAVING LIVED IN Gary, Indiana, for some 60 of her 81 years, Carolyn Jean Williams' social network in the scrappy Rust Belt town was as deep as it was strong. So when she was hospitalized after a bad fall and a subsequent infection on March 13, Williams' network gathered at her bedside at Methodist Hospitals' Southlake Campus in Merrillville, Indiana. As they soothed her with the balms of presence, faith and touch, her son, Eric Deggans, rushed from Florida to her bedside.

Then, the COVID-19 pandemic stormed into town.

As coronavirus infections took root in Indiana and neighboring Chicago, Methodist banned all visitors to prevent transmission, says Deggans, a TV critic for NPR. The protocol, he says, was so sweeping – and abrupt – that hospital staff broke up an impromptu bedside prayer circle and escorted everyone from Williams' hospital room. A lifetime in the making, her network was shredded when she needed it most.

His mother, Deggans says, was heartbroken: "I didn't see her for four days."

As the U.S. nears its 123,000th death from an illness for which there is no inoculation, it's clear COVID-19 has altered the way we live: wearing face coverings in public, standing 6 feet apart in line at the store. But experts say the virus has also brought dramatic change for a painful situation as old as humankind: dealing with the end of life.

Amid a global pandemic, hospitals, funeral homes and palliative care facilities nationwide have made tough calls about visitations and mourning rituals, balancing the need to comfort the dying – and support the grieving – with the risk of spreading a potentially deadly contagion.

Some hospitals closed their doors to all visitors while others enacted tough new social distancing restrictions, limiting sickbed visitors to one or two people, even if the patient wasn't infected with COVID-19. A quick online search for guidelines turns up nearly as many rules as there are hospitals.

"Some hospitals are allowing one asymptomatic visitor for patients at the end of life, providing they do not need to self-isolate and can wear appropriate personal protective equipment," according to an editorial in The BMJ, an online medical journal. "But practice is inconsistent, and international consensus is lacking."

Nancy Foster, vice president of quality and patient safety policy at the American Hospital Association, told NPR "it is up to individual hospitals to set up their own protocols." Hospitals, she said, have been following guidance from federal, state and local officials.

"When possible, hospitals have worked to accommodate companions in the room for those who could not speak for themselves," she said, and have facilitated video or phone conferencing with family members and others.

The sudden changes, however, meant doctors, nurses and other caregivers instantly became intermediaries, relaying information – and sometimes emotional, heart-wrenching farewell messages – between loved ones and a terminally ill patient. It also pushed technology to the forefront: sterile, remote phone calls, text messages or Zoom group chats have become substitutes for a loving touch, a laugh, a hug or a kiss that could transmit the virus.

Social distancing has similarly disrupted funerals, an important social ritual to give closure to the living as well as to honor the dead, experts say.

Gone, for now, are the days of mourners shoulder-to-shoulder in pews, singing hymns, holding hands in prayer or weeping in one another's arms. Funeral directors and even some churches are restricting the number of people who can attend a memorial service; only a handful are allowed, and they're kept at appropriate social distance.

To compensate, ministers and mortuaries have turned to livestreaming funerals over the internet to friends and family who can't come in – a rare if not unheard of practice before the pandemic took hold.

Yet mourning remotely through video often triggers a "sense of emptiness," says Michael LuBrant, program director of mortuary science at the University of Minnesota.

"A virtual setting can engage the eyes and ears. What it can't engage are the other senses," he says.

In a virtual funeral, there's an invisible barrier: Mourners can't gather in communion, they can't smell flowers or the freshly turned earth of a grave, and they can't touch or hold one another. Those visual and sensory cues, LuBrant says, have been part of the grieving process for millenia.

Because the pandemic has cut in-person connections at the end of life, some of the bereaved feel "cheated" of the chance to say goodbye, LuBrant says. They see themselves and the deceased as "forgotten victims" of COVID-19.

To distraught friends and family, the changes may seem heartless. Data, however, suggests the restrictions in hospital wards and funeral homes are justified.

In the early days of the pandemic, health care workers accounted for around 20% of infections in some places. Funerals in Albany, Georgia, are believed to have fueled a wave of coronavirus infections in the area.

And while the protocols fly in the face of norms and rituals surrounding the dead as well as the sick and dying, most experts say social distance restrictions are already leading to permanent changes.

Sara Murphy, a professor at the University of Rhode Island and expert on death and dying, says more people are now realizing it's imprudent to put off end-of-life discussions, even for those not ill with COVID-19.

"I believe we are living in a real watershed moment," she says. The pandemic "will not allow us to be as death-avoiding or death-fearing, at least for some period of time."

Agreed, says Mark Krause, president of Krause Funeral Homes and Cremation Services of Milwaukee. For too long, he says, "death has been to us what sex was to the Victorians. It is culturally a taboo topic."

"We are definitely going to be talking about death more frequently," he says.

But having direct conversations about death doesn't necessarily make it less painful.

Dr. Raya E. Kheirbek, chief of the palliative care division at the University of Maryland Medical Center, says a deathbed Zoom call or computer-screen funeral "is never enough" to say farewell to someone who is loved. And with the virus surging again in places like Florida and Arizona as the nation slowly reopens, social distance rules in hospitals and funeral homes will likely continue indefinitely.

"There is no return" to the old normal, Kheirbek says. "Life as we knew it – it's gone for all of us."

Deggans ran headlong into that reality while arranging his mother's funeral, which was held at St. Timothy Community Church. The service was a cold comfort: Though his mother was beloved, with dozens of mourners asking to attend, social restrictions meant just 10 people could enter the sanctuary, including the technicians who were livestreaming the service.

"She was a member of the church choir for six decades," Deggans says, exasperation tinging his voice. "There was a ritual that her sorority wanted to do. People that she had taught, or who had worked with her, wanted to express their condolences."

While precautions are appropriate, Deggans says, the absence of contact in his mother's final days, and the social distance between her and the people who mourned her, were bitter pills to swallow. Yet he acknowledges the excruciating circumstances of his mother's death are probably the new normal for a while.

"You know, if you have somebody who's seriously ill because they have COVID, that's one kind of tragedy – not being able to visit them, or spend time with them," Deggans says. "But when somebody you love is seriously ill and they don't have that disease (but) you still can't visit them? That's especially difficult."