Monthly Archives: November 2019

funeral homes in Macomb, MI

What to Cancel When a Loved One Dies

After funerals at funeral homes in Macomb, MI, there will be many things that you will need to take care of to put your loved one’s life to rest. In the hustle and bustle of the days and weeks following your loved one’s death, you may feel overwhelmed and unable to get everything done.

Because of this, you may not think about all the things that are associated with your loved one’s life, or think about the need to have some things canceled. This list should help you make sure you get everything canceled so there are no surprises down the road.

Financial accounts are one area that you need to consider. Some accounts may need to be canceled, while others will simply need ownership transferred to you, if you’re not already attached to the account.

Bank accounts and credit union accounts, which include checking accounts, CD’s, and savings accounts, should be canceled or transferred to your name after all debts are paid. If you are already attached to the bank accounts, then the accounts need to be put in your name only, with your loved one’s name removed from the account.

If your loved one had credit cards in their name only, these should be cancelled. If you are attached to their credit card accounts, then you need to contact the credit card companies to have your loved one’s name removed from the accounts.

If your loved one had a mortgage or car loan in their name only, then you will need to have ownership of the mortgage and car loan transferred to you. If the mortgage or car loan was in both your name and your loved one’s name, then your loved one’s name needs to be taken off.

Retirement and investment accounts that your loved had should be transferred into your name only.

PayPal and BitCoin accounts that your loved one had should be cancelled. If you don’t have a PayPal account set up for yourself, then you should go ahead and get one so that you can send and receive and easily pay for things purchased online.

Insurance is another area where policies may need to be cancelled or put in your name only.

It is like that you are already on car insurance policies, mortgage insurance policies, and homeowner’s insurance policies that your loved one had. If that’s the case, you need to have these policies changed to be in just your name.

Life insurance claims are paid after your loved one dies, so you need to make sure that you make claims for any life insurance policies your loved one had.

Two kinds of policies that need to be canceled are health insurance (this includes Medicare supplemental insurance) and dental/vision insurance.

Some utilities may need to be canceled or transferred into just your name. These include cell phones, cable or satellite TV, internet, garbage, water, electricity, and sewer.

Prescription drugs that your loved one had that automatically renew should be canceled. In addition, any upcoming medical appointment should be canceled as well.

Subscriptions may also need to be canceled, if they were just something your loved one was interested in or used. These can include things like Netflix, Amazon Prime, online gaming, movie and TV subscriptions, cloud storage, monthly boxes, music subscriptions, magazines, and newspapers.

For more information about funerals at funeral homes in Macomb, MI, our compassionate and experienced staff at Lee-Ellena Funeral Home can help. You can come by our funeral home at 46530 Romeo Plank Rd., Macomb, MI, 48044 or you can contact us today at (586) 412-8999.

cremation services offered in Mount Sterling Heights, MI

Holding a Funeral Without the Body Present

Funeral services are part of the cremation services offered in Mount Sterling Heights, MI. There are many instances in which funeral services are held without the body of the deceased being present at the service. It’s not as unusual as it might seem, even with deceased people who are being buried and not cremated.

There are some practical reasons for not having the body of deceased present at a funeral service where burial will follow.

Some people are in no shape to be viewed after they die. Some illnesses ravage the body so savagely that the person is almost unrecognizable by the time they die. The family preserves the dignity of their loved one and keeps mourners from being shocked by not having the body present at the funeral service, even though they will be buried.

In the case of violent murders or deaths where the body is already badly decomposed, there is nothing that will make those people who’ve died look presentable for a funeral, so their bodies will be absent from the funeral service.

Some families, even though the body of the deceased is in good shape, simply choose not to have the body present. Sometimes this is for emotional reasons, especially if family members are having an extremely hard time dealing with the death of a loved one. If the body of the person who has died isn’t in sight, then it’s easier to keep some level of emotional calmness during the funeral service.

However, most cases of a body deceased person not being present at a funeral service involve cremation. A funeral service can be held before or after the cremation, but in either case, the body of the person who died doesn’t have to be present.

Usually, funeral services for people who’ve been cremated are held after the cremation, but some families choose to hold the funeral service before their loved one is cremated. Other than funeral services where the family decides not to have the body of the deceased present, there are other types of funeral services where the body of the person who died is not present.

One of these types of funeral services is a wake celebration. Wake celebrations are parties held to honor the person who died and to give them the right kind of sendoff to make sure they keep going upward toward heaven. There are many communities in American where this is a funeral service tradition.

Another type of funeral service is a memorial service at a location the family of the deceased chooses. While there may be some spiritual components to this type of funeral service, the main focus is to remember the person who died and to talk about what they personally meant to the people attending. There are often video presentations, memory walls, and food and drinks at this kind of funeral service.

An achievement memorial service is also a type of funeral service held after someone has been cremated. The focus of achievement memorial services is to highlight the achievements of the person who has died, as well as the contributions they made their families, their communities, their work, and, maybe even, to the world, and what benefits that brought.

Church memorial services are also a type of funeral service that is held after cremation. This funeral service is led by the clergy member of the deceased’s home church and has a very definite spiritual focus, with prayers and scriptures composing the majority of the service.

For more information about cremation services in Mount Sterling Heights, MI, our caring and knowledgeable staff at Lee-Ellena Funeral is here to assist you. You can visit our funeral home at 46530 Romeo Plank Rd., Macomb, MI 48044, or you can call us today at (586) 412-8999.

funeral homes in Mount Sterling Heights, MI

How Weddings and Funerals are Similar

Attending funerals at funeral homes in Mount Sterling Heights, MI may feel very similar to attending weddings for you. If you feel this way, you’re not alone. Many people lump weddings and funerals together as the two life events they least like to attend.

There is a reason for this. Weddings and funerals have many things about them that are similar, even though weddings are happy life events and funerals are sad life events.

The first similarity between weddings and funerals is that are very emotional. At weddings, emotions soar to the highest heights, as everyone is enthralled at the union of a couple who has a whole new, and potentially, wonderful life ahead of them. At funerals, on the other hand, emotions sink to the deepest lows, as the life of someone who was loved has ended and friends and family must go on without them.

Another similarity between weddings and funerals is that everyone dresses up. At weddings, the dress-up clothes are bright and colorful, while at funerals, the dress-up clothes are dark and muted. Women wear high heels and lots of jewelry to weddings, while they wear flat shoes and little to no jewelry at funerals.

Weddings and funerals are also alike in that there are a lot of flowers. At weddings, flowers adorn the platform where the bride and groom will take their vows. Flower girls strew petals from flowers down the aisle in advance of the bride. Groomsmen have flowers in the lapels of their jackets. The bride tosses a wedding bouquet of flowers over her head toward the single ladies to see which one will walk down the aisle next (or, so the tradition says).

At funerals, plants, flower arrangements, flower wreaths, and flower sprays surround the casket during the funeral service. Pallbearers may wear flowers in their lapels. And at the gravesite, flowers are placed around and on the casket in preparation for burial. In some funeral traditions, mourners either lay a single flower on the casket at the cemetery, or they thrown them onto the casket once it’s lowered into the grave and before the grave is covered.

Another similarity between weddings and funerals is that things are organized by a director. For weddings, a wedding director takes care of all the details of the arrangements to make sure the wedding goes off without a hitch (this includes decorations, catering, the wedding cake, and making sure everyone’s where they’re supposed to and on time).

With funerals, the funeral director takes care of all the details of the arrangements to make sure that the deceased has an honorable and respectable funeral without any things happening that could cause the family consternation or increase their stress.

Weddings and funerals also can involve the family having conflicts over the service or the décor. We’ve all heard the gorilla bride stories where usually the mother of the bride (and perhaps the mother of the groom) and the bride fight over every single detail of the service and the décor. Similarly, families can often have major disagreements about funerals, including the service and the décor.

A final similarity is that weddings and funerals are both events that involve saying goodbye to someone you love. When a father gives his daughter away, he and his wife are saying goodbye in a sense to her as solely a part of their family. While this is a soft goodbye, it still brings tears. At a funeral, however, the goodbye is final for this life. And it also brings tears.

For more information about funerals at funeral homes in Mount Sterling Heights, MI, our compassionate and experienced staff at Lee-Ellena Funeral Home can help. You can come by our funeral home at 46530 Romeo Plank Rd., Macomb, MI, 48044 or you can contact us today at (586) 412-8999.

cremation services offered in Clinton Township, MI

Pay it Forward: Organ or Whole-Body Donations

Before cremations as part of the cremation services offered in Clinton Township, MI, some people have chosen to be organ donors or whole-body donors. Organ donations and whole-body donations after death can offer extended life, future hope, and changed worlds for many other people.

Whole-body donations after people die are done as way to help advance scientific research into eventually-fatal diseases, such as cancer, heart failure, muscular dystrophy, strokes, and cystic fibrosis, and neurological diseases, such as dementia, schizophrenia, and depression.

The process of donating your body for scientific research is relatively simple. First, you need to find a donation organization that is dedicated to scientific research. The easiest place to start is in your local community at universities that have medical schools. Most medical schools have a whole-body donation program already in place. There are also private scientific research companies that accept whole-body donations, but they are usually located in metropolitan areas, so your body would have to be transported from where you live to where the company is located.

Once you’ve identified the places where you can donate your body for research, you will need to contact them and pre-register as a whole-body donor. This can help you narrow down your final choice, since some organizations have very specific criteria for whole-body donations and you may not fall within that criteria.

Be sure to find out if you or your family will bear any obligations when you donate your body. Most body donation programs cover funeral expenses such as transportation and cremation, but you need to verify that the organization that you want to donate your body to covers them.

Once you’ve made your decision on where to donate your body, go ahead and take care of the necessary steps to ensure that your body is donated there after your death.

Be sure to tell your family that you are a registered whole-body donor. Let them know which organization you’ve registered with (so they can let the funeral director know), and let them know that you are doing this to help other people, now and in the future. This is also a good time to talk about memorial services and what you’d like to have in that service.

Make sure to update your will to reflect that you want to donate your body to scientific research. Include the name, address, and phone number of the organization that you are registered with.

Be sure to have a plan B. You may be in good health when you register with an organization to be a whole-body donor, but by the time you die, your health may not have been good enough to be accepted into the whole body donation program you chose. Let your family know what your plan B is, so they can be prepared as well.

Organ donations are live-saving and live-extending gifts to one or more people after you die. All the organs, except for the brain, can be harvest and transplanted into recipients with matching blood types. Body tissue is included in organ donations and these can be used for things like ligament and tendon replacements in people who have severely damaged or torn their own tendons and ligaments.

Becoming an organ donor is as simple as checking a box when you get a driver’s license or you renew an existing driver’s license. Again, it’s critical that you let your family know that you want your organs donated when you die, because you won’t be able to tell them then.

For more information about cremation services in Clinton Township, MI, our caring and knowledgeable staff at Lee-Ellena Funeral is here to assist you. You can visit our funeral home at 46530 Romeo Plank Rd., Macomb, MI 48044, or you can call us today at (586) 412-8999.