Why Choose Cremation?

More and more families are opting for cremation over burial. Although the majority of people cite lower cost as their primary impetus for cremation, there are other lesser known advantages. Because funeral services provide support and comfort to the grieving, the flexibility of cremation in scheduling, proximity, and creativity can, in some cases, better lend itself to a supportive grieving process.

Why Flexibility Is Important to Funeral Planning

Scheduling Flexibility

In a time when many families are spread out across the nation or even the globe, the challenge of returning home for the funeral of a loved one is a source of stress and expense. This is where cremation can offer more flexibility in scheduling a meaningful and well-attended funeral.

Typically family members need to travel within 10-14 days of the loss (even less in the case there is no embalming) in order to arrive on time for a visitation, funeral or graveside dedication. The cost and logistics of last-minute flights, hurried lodging arrangements, lost work, or missed events are major components of bereavement stress. 

Financial strain is made worse when the deceased suffers from prolonged illness before their passing. In many of these cases, someone makes a trip to visit a loved one at their sickbed, only to receive the word immediately upon their return home that the loved one has passed. 

If travel arrangements are cost-prohibitive and loved ones have to forego the funeral altogether, they are at increased risk for complex or unproductive grief. In other words, a person becomes stuck in a repeating cycle of loss, unable to metabolize the new reality of life without a loved one. 

Funeral services have been shown to support the grieving process by cementing the truth of the loss in the mind of the bereaved. By providing the possibility of delayed services, cremation supports loved ones in taking the time to arrange travel that accommodates budgets, prior commitments, or a private mourning period to ensure a supportive funeral.

Flexibility of Expression

Beyond affording loved ones a flexible time frame for services, cremation offers a wide-range of grieving and ceremonial options:

• Traditional services - There can still be a full traditional casketed service, utilizing a rental casket or a cremation casket (a high quality wooden or metal casket, with a removable combustible insert which goes into the crematory following services). 
• Visitation - Cremation can be preceded by visitation, either public (with embalming) or private (no embalming – immediate family only).
• Memorials - Funeral services can be held before or immediately after the cremation, or they can be done in the form of a memorial service months after the death. 
• Final Resting Places - In terms of a final resting place, cremation offers the greatest breadth of choices, from scattering, placement in a garden or other natural space, earth burial, placement in a mausoleum niche, or return to the family in an urn. 

Proximity to a Lost Loved One

Often one of the most acute pain points for the bereaved is the corporeal loss, or the loss of physical closeness to the one who has passed. Burial requires a fixed place of remembrance at a cemetery. Some bereaved may feel a lifelong tether to this final resting place and fear moving away even if life circumstances warrant it. Others may feel distant, guilty or distressed about seldom visiting the grave of a cherished loved one. 

Because of the portability of ashes, cremation allows for ongoing proximity to the remains of a lost loved one. Most often this is in the form of an urn in the home, but it could also be memorial jewelry, which allows a small portion of the ashes to be carried in a locket. In cases where loved ones are geographically spread out, cremation allows for each bereaved person to take a “piece” of their loved one with them. 

Ashes can also act as a physical totem for the bereaved to bring a lost loved one forward with them into ongoing life experiences. This can be a powerful medium for healing, especially if the bereaved feels regret at a loved one’s passing before achieving a bucket list item or going somewhere together. From Mediterranean cruises to climbing mountaintops or visiting an ancestral home, many families make journeys after loss, packing the urn of a loved one along, as a symbol of togetherness in achieving a long-sought dream or moving forward with hope.

Creative or Personalized Arrangements

As our culture moves in a steady trajectory away from age old traditions, many people feel disconnected from the idea of a traditional funeral. The conventions of the church service with a viewing, readings, hymns, a clergy eulogy and a processional to the graveyard may feel less like a bracing, supportive tradition and more like a misaligned nod to a bygone way of living. 

Assuming there is no alternative, many people are opting out of ceremonies of any kind, leaving their loved ones to navigate their grief outside the scope of ritual and community. But, funerals are becoming as diverse, eclectic and versatile as the modern lives we lead, and cremation is a main vehicle for this creativity. 

Although there are increasingly creative and expressive traditions arising around burial as well, the necessity of accommodating a casketed body brings restrictions. When the body is present, services are usually confined to a funeral parlor, church, or cemetery, whereas memorial services can be held in any venue imaginable. 

Creative options around cremation are boundless and steadily expanding. Cremated remains can be turned into compost soil or a tree, or they can be placed in a biodegradable urn and left in a symbolic location on land or in water. 

What’s more, many people no longer resonate with a mourning tone in funerals, opting instead to focus on the celebratory and life-affirming aspects of remembrance.  To accommodate these wishes, services can  be held anywhere from a sportsplex or pub to a local theater or museum. Final tributes can range from comedy open mics or curated displays of art or life work to scattering pilgrimages or hot air balloon rides. To explore more nontraditional funeral ideas, check out this article.

Conclusion

Not only does cremation offer flexibility in funeral logistics, easing bereavement stress for loved ones, it also offers more creative outlets of expression in remembrance that may feel more supportive than more traditional practices. However, there are a few things to avoid when it comes to planning a cremation. You can read more about the risks associated with a poorly planned cremation in this article.