Kane & Fetterly

Many reasons to pre-arrange a funeral

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Bridget Fetterly

FACT: When I meet a family who’s relative has died and there are no pre-arranged funerals, planning a funeral can take up to 4 hours. If a pre-arranged funeral plan exists, the meeting may only take half an hour.

In meeting with so many families over the years, we have heard many reasons for pre-arranged funeral plans. Here are just a few:

  • I have no family and I do not want to become an unclaimed person at the mercy of the government.
  • My children are scattered around the world. I want to make things easy for them.
  • My children and family do not get along. I want to make all the decisions ahead of time so there are no conflicts at the time of my death.
  • Some of my family members are greedy. Even if I am out of touch with them, they are sure to surface at my funeral. I do not want my executor to have problems, so I want to make sure everything is organized and prepaid.
  • I do not want anyone cutting corners on my funeral because they want my inheritance.
  • I do not want my family to have to deal with financial matters at the time of my death.
  • I feel good knowing that everything will be pre-paid and no one has to stress about finding money to pay the funeral expenses.
  • I want to leave precise instructions to my family because my faith is important to me.
  • I want to make the major decisions to guide my family but they can take care of the details when the time comes.
  • I want people to remember me for who I was, so there are particular things that I want at my funeral to personalize it.
  • I want to make sure that a funeral is held after my death. I know it is an important part of the grieving process for my family.
  • I am religious and my family is not. It’s important to me that they respect my beliefs, therefore I want to leave instructions for my funeral.
  • I want my story to be told and by arranging the details of my funeral ahead of time, my family will be sure not to forget anything.
  • We are from different countries with very different traditions. It is important we instruct our children on what we want or they will not know which tradition to follow and where to bury us.