A gathering with the loved one's body present facilitates mourning. Mourning is nature's way of dissipating grief. We humans, after millennia of saying, "Goodbye", have never come up with anything more moving and cathartic. For those who companioned their loved one through sickness or found their loved one after some tragedy, this type of service can be additionally beneficial. Survivors are provided a more comforting memory picture to carry forward.
A gathering with the urn, containing a loved one's cremated remains, can be very meaningful. Through the use of photographs, video, story sharing, music and memory tables, family and visitors' relationship and feelings are validated and affirmed.
Possibly a private gathering at your home, cabin, a stadium or beach is the right place to say, "Goodbye". We can suggest many unique ways to make a formal or very informal service at such locations memorable.
Memorialization can be as simple as a carving on a tree, deep in the forest or on a stone at the mountain top. It can be a perfectly created monument in a cemetery; a cemetery offers a permanence that few private places can. Memorialization can be of benefit to mankind, such as gifts to charities and other important causes. It can be a book, easily created about your loved one's life. https://try.my.yesterday.net/start-trial Memorialization can be all these things and more.
Below are the most often asked questions regarding the actual cremation process. Included in our responses are the services and extra care we are proud to offer.
There are very few crematories compared to the number of funeral homes in the McKeesport/White Oak area. Most funeral homes transport individuals entrusted to their care to an offsite crematory, for refrigerated storage and cremation.
We have our own Gentle Care Crematory. An entrusted loved one never leaves our care. Moreover, we do not perform cremations for other funeral homes. Therefore, our Gentle Care Crematory is serene and reverent, and the possibility of visual or unsupervised access to a loved one by outside personnel is eliminated.
Factors that determine when cremation can occur and accordingly, when cremated remains can be returned include:
If all of the above requirements are met, it is possible that cremated remains can be returned within 48 hours. However, it is not uncommon for a loved one to remain in the care of the funeral home or crematory for several days, while legal requirements are satisfied. Regardless of the waiting period, our Gentle Care Crematory provides a personal, refrigerated resting place, instead of communal storage, until cremation can take place.
It depends on equipment and the business model of the crematory. High volume facilities may employ methods to reduce cremation time and related expense to a minimum, and the process may take 90 minutes or even less.
At our Gentle Care Crematory, every loved one entrusted to our care is afforded an undisturbed, 3 to 6 hour cremation process.
Through the process of cremation, much of an individual is returned to the universe in the form of energy. The bone fragments that remain are the cremated remains. Crematories can take extreme care in recovering cremated remains before performing the next cremation, but it is impossible to keep microscopic co-mingling from occurring. At our, Gentle Care Crematory, we do take extreme care.
After a cremation, instead of relying on rudimentary methods, which can leave behind a substantial amount of cremated remains, we employ a unique recovery system to ensure dust-size particles are removed from the cremator. Co-mingling is therefore reduced to an absolute minimum.
There are a variety of ways that funeral homes and crematories use to verify and maintain the identity of individuals to be cremated. All such methods are based on the paramount goal of returning the correct cremated remains.
Our Gentle Care Crematory employs the health care based method of ensuring identity. In the presence of a family member, the funeral director places an irremovable bracelet upon the loved one’s wrist. The special bracelet withstands the cremation process and will be present with the cremated remains that are returned to the family. This permanent form of identification avoids the pitfalls of other methods and eliminates the possibility of mistaken identity. It provides families true peace of mind in knowing they have received the cremated remains of their loved one.
If you have other questions, please call or request a tour of our facility!
We will be proud to show you our Gentle Care Crematory.