Part of planning funerals at funeral homes in Bedford, OH may include what is communicated in letters of last instruction. Typically, when you create a will, a letter of last instruction is included with the will.

However, you can leave a letter of last instruction with the rest of your important papers as an overview of what your wishes and desires are after you die. Think of your letter of last instruction as a supplement to your will that will guide your family through administrating your estate and directing them to all your important personal information.

So, what is included in a letter of last instruction?

One of the things that you should include in a letter of last instruction is a list of personal contacts. These are the people who need to be notified when you die. You should include contact information for family members, friends, clergy members, work, and social acquaintances that you want to be notified of your death.

Another thing that should be included in your letter of last instruction is a list of business and financial contacts. This list should include insurance agents, financial advisors, attorneys, and accountants. This list should also include the location of your bank, information about your insurance policies, and a list of all your account and policy numbers.

A letter of last instruction should also tell your family where your legal documents are located. If you have them in a safe at home, be sure that you include access to the safe. If your legal documents are located in a safety deposit box at your bank, you need to go now with a family member or someone else that you trust and have them granted access to the safety deposit box (they will be given a key).

Legal documents include documents such as wills, social security cards, trust documents, veterans benefits files, birth certificates, deeds, marriage certificates, titles, contracts, divorce decrees, mortgage papers, etc.

We all have a bigger digital footprint than we think we have. Your letter of last instruction should include all of your online usernames and passwords. Remember to include email accounts, social media accounts, bank and financial accounts, credit card accounts, shopping accounts, and the account to log onto your computer.

With this information, whoever is administrating your estate can close accounts, use accounts, and protect accounts to ensure that there is no theft of your identity after your death.

Your letter of last instruction should also detail any outstanding debts that you owe or that is owed to you. Be sure to include detailed information, including loan account numbers, credit card numbers, collateral, privately held notes, and terms of payment for the debts you owe and for any debts that are owed to you.

Another thing that you need to include in a letter of last instruction is a list of beneficiaries of your estate. For this list, you’ll need to list the names and contact information (include email addresses and cell phone numbers) for all your beneficiaries. You can also provide specific bequests for things that you want to give to certain beneficiaries because they have sentimental value to them.

Don’t forget your pets. Your letter of last instruction should provide information about how to take care of any pets who survive you. You should also designate who should take care of your pets and whether their care will be paid for by you.

The final item in your letter of last instruction should be detailed information about the kind of funeral you want and any service that you may want after your death.

If you’d like to learn more about letters of last instruction at funeral homes in Bedford, OH, our compassionate and experienced team at E. F. Boyd & Son Funeral Home is here to help.

Before funerals at funeral homes in Bedford Heights, OH, good end of life care may make our memories of our loved ones’ lives much happier. The Madame Curie charity (a UK organization that provides support for terminally ill patients and their families) done extensive research on end-of-life care. They found that more than 33% of the people surveyed believed that inadequate or poor end of life care diminished the good memories they had of their loved ones.

About 20% of the people who were surveyed, believed that better end-of-life care would have helped them remember their loved ones with happier memories.

Four-fifths of the people who were surveyed saw a direct correlation between their happy memories of their loved ones and the good and positive end of life care. These same people believed that because their loved ones received great end of life care, they themselves were better able to go through the grieving process after their loved ones were gone.

This research indicates that how well our loved ones are taken care of by hospice or hospital organizations while they’re dying is interwoven with how positively we remember their entire lives. This research also seems to suggest that even in relationships that were not particularly easy, better memories of the relationship emerged if the loved one received a good end of life care.

Losing your loved one is a traumatic and life-changing event. You will be overwhelmed with many strong emotions before your loved one dies. These emotions will intensify after your loved one dies. If your loved one’s end of life care was poor or inadequate and it didn’t serve your loved one and you well, that can have detrimental effects on how you remember your loved one.

If you find yourself getting angry each time you think about the last few weeks, days, hours of your loved one’s life because the hospice group or hospital staff was inattentive or even negligent, then it’s more likely that you will have more negative memories about your loved one’s entire life.

With the right care and support, the dying process can be calm and peaceful. And it should be that way. However, the reality is that not all hospice agencies and hospitals are equal, and while some of them provide fantastic care and support, others do not.

One of the most frustrating situations you can find yourself and your dying loved one in is when acute home health care (right after a hospital stay), palliative home health care (continuous care when acute care is no longer need and until hospice care is needed) and hospice care (end of life care) units are within the same organization, but they operate independently of each other.

The acute and palliative home health care could be excellent, but the hospice care might be awful, or vice versa. It’s imperative to know that you have, as an advocate for your loved one, the right (and responsibility) to fire any care group that isn’t providing excellent care and replaces them with a care group that will.

The last days of your loved one’s life are important. You should make sure that they have the best care available, not only for their sake but also for yours and the memories you will be left with when your loved one is gone.

If you’d like to learn about funeral planning at funeral homes in Bedford Heights, OH, our compassionate and experienced team at E. F. Boyd & Son Funeral Home is here to help.

Funerals at funeral homes in Cleveland Heights, OH are held after someone dies. However, there are several kinds of death that can occur before people are officially declared dead.

One type of death is brain death. If there is no neurological activity at all, then a person is declared brain dead (this, in medical terms, is considered as being legally dead). But even though there is no neurological activity in a person, modern technology and medicine can still keep the body alive without the person’s brain functioning at all. That means that a body without brain activity can be kept alive for a long time with artificial means.

Although it’s unusual for people who are brain dead to be kept on life support for an extended period of time, it is very common for people who have suffered brain death to be kept alive for a short period of time, especially if they are organ donors.

This kind of life support is necessary to keep the organs healthy until all the organ transplants can be arranged. Once all the organ transplants are arranged, the person who is brain dead is then taken off life support, and the organs are harvested for transport to the designated recipients.

Another type of death is circulatory death. Circulatory death happens when the heart stops beating, and blood stops circulating in the body to vital organs, including the brain (brain death can actually be the result of circulatory death).

Circulatory death is more commonly known as cardiac arrest and, unless a person has a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) order in place, emergency responders or hospital staff will try to get their heart beating again, using one or all of these methods: CPR, adrenaline, and electric shock.

The more time that passes when the heart is stopped, the more likely that brain damage or brain death will happen. Most medical experts say that six minutes is the maximum amount of time the heart can be stopped before damage to the brain starts.

If a person’s heart is restarted before the brain dies completely, then significant brain damage has happened. This results in the person who was revived being in a persistent vegetative state.

A persistent vegetative state is defined as “chronic wakefulness without awareness.” People who are in a persistent vegetative state are legally considered to be alive even though their brains are dead, so unless they have living wills that dictate that they don’t want any extraordinary medical measures taken, they will be given feeding tubes and ventilators to be kept alive.

A very famous case of someone being in a persistent vegetative state is that of Karen Ann Quinlan.

In April 1975, Quinlan went on a very restrictive diet to try to fit into a new dress that she had purchased. A couple of weeks after starting the diet, on April 15, 1975, Quinlan, who had not eaten any food for two days, went to a friend’s birthday party at a local bar in Byram Township, New Jersey. While there, she consumed a few gin and tonics and took Valium.

Shortly afterward, Quinlan felt weak and dizzy, so her friends took her home and put her to bed. When her friends checked on her fifteen minutes later, Quinlan was not breathing.

Emergency services were called and paramedics began to try to revive Quinlan. While she regained normal skin color and resumed breathing, Quinlan was still unresponsive.

Quinlan was admitted to Newton Memorial Hospital in a comatose state. Because her brain had been deprived of oxygen for at least 20 minutes, the damage was irreversible, and Quinlan was in a persistent vegetative state.

Quinlan’s parents wanted their daughter removed from the ventilator, but the Morris County prosecutor threatened to charge the hospital with homicide if they removed the ventilator. Quinlan’s parents sued in September 1975 to have the ventilator removed, but their request was denied by a New Jersey Superior Court judge.

Finally, in 1976, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that Quinlan’s ventilator could be removed. However, Quinlan’s parents had not requested that her feeding tube be removed, so Quinlan lived for nine more years until June 1985, when she died from respiratory failure.

If you’d like to learn about planning funerals at funeral homes in Cleveland Heights, OH, our compassionate and experienced team at E. F. Boyd & Son Funeral Home is here to help.

Before funerals at funeral homes in Bedford, OH, you need to enlist a cleaner (someone you trust and who is technically adept) to clean your physical house and clean your digital house to eliminate anything that might create problems after your death.

This cleaner is not your run-of-the-mill cleaner. Their job is to go through closets, dresser drawers, medicine cabinets, office desks, etc. and remove anything that could cause potential problems with your family members. They are tasked with destroying everything they remove that you direct them to destroy.

This person is also responsible for cleaning your digital house. Every time you do anything online, you leave behind traces of data. These are known as crumbs, and they stay around years after you leave them.

You may not have any particularly incriminating or embarrassing crumbs of data in your online past. If you do, then you’ll definitely want to get those cleaned up before you die. But crumbs of data give other people too much information about you, and if that information should fall into the wrong hands then you could be a target for some kind of fraudulent activity.

Additionally, most of us have been online for 20 or more years. What you left behind 20 or more years ago may not reflect anything about you now. So, you will want to clean up the old you before you die (this is common advice to college graduates who are looking for employment and who have social media accounts that are 10 or 15 years old, and which may not show them in the most flattering light to potential employers).

In the same way that you wouldn’t want old love letters or other very personal things read by other people, you don’t want to leave that kind of information in your digital house when you die.

The four reasons that you need to clean your physical house and your digital house are to ensure that you have not left anything that is dangerous, that is illegal, that is embarrassing, or that is secret.

Dangerous things in your physical house include things like prescription medications that would pose a potential safety threat to other people. These would include things like painkillers, antidepressants, and anxiety medication.

Illegal items in your physical house are things that are not allowed under federal, state, or local laws and which could get you arrested.

Embarrassing things in your physical house include anything that you wouldn’t display in the open when you have friends and family members over.

There may be embarrassing things in your digital house as well. These would include pictures posted on social media, pictures on your smartphone, text messages, social media posts, and emails you wouldn’t want everyone to see.

Embarrassing things don’t necessarily have to be anything racy. But they could be things that are offensive to others or that demean others.

Secret things in your physical house could include family information, such as a previous marriage that no one knew about or adoption that no one knew about, private affiliations with groups that are secretive by nature, or affiliations with groups that your family and friends would find offensive, or relationships that your family and friends know nothing about.

Your cleaner must have access to both your physical house and your digital house. This means they need to have keys to get into your physical house and passwords to get into your digital house.

If you’d like to learn more funeral planning at funeral homes in Bedford, OH, our compassionate and experienced team at E. F. Boyd & Son Funeral Home is here to help.

Many funerals at funeral homes in Bedford Heights, OH are the result of one of the leading causes of death in the United States. Despite being a nation that should have the benefits that lead to better health – and more natural lifespans and causes of death – much of access to those benefits is unequal or unattainable.

The top cause of death in America is heart disease. Heart disease accounts for almost 650,000 (or about 23%) of American deaths each year. Of these heart-related deaths, about two-thirds are from coronary artery disease (a condition in which the major blood vessels of the heart become damaged or diseased).

Risk factors for developing heart disease include a family history of heart disease, obesity, and smoking. Men are more likely to develop heart disease than women and people over the age of 55 are more susceptible to developing heart disease.

You can lower your risk of developing heart disease by making lifestyle changes. These include eating a healthier diet, exercising at least two and a half hours a week, losing weight, and abstaining from smoking.

The second most common cause of death in the United States is cancer. Almost 600,000 (or almost 22%) Americans die each year from cancer. Although each type of cancer has specific risk factors associated with it, the are some common risk factors that make developing any kind of cancer more likely.

These include a family history of cancer, obesity, tobacco use (smoking, chewing, dipping, etc.), excessive exposure to sunlight or radiation, and chronic inflammation. The genesis of all cancers is tumors (which may be benign or may become malignant), which develop when normal cells in your body start replicating in a rapid and uncontrolled manner.

Although there are no sure ways to avoid developing cancer, there are some things that you can do to lessen your risk. One way is to eat a healthy diet (eliminate highly-processed and high-fat/high-salt/high-sugar foods and replace them with whole grains, nuts, fresh vegetables, and fresh fruits).

Other ways are to avoid too much exposure to the sun, exercise on a regular basis, drink alcohol in moderation, and eliminate tobacco products.

The third most common cause of American deaths is accidents. Accidents are unintentional injuries. Death from accidents occurs when those unintentional injuries are so severe that life can’t be sustained. More than 160,000 (or almost 6%) people in the United States die each year as the result of accidents.

Men are much more likely to die in accidents, as are people under 45, and people who work in high-risk professions (such as manufacturing, construction, law enforcement, and careers that require a lot of driving).

Accidents result in over 28 million emergency department visits in the United States on an annual basis. Deaths from accidents are most commonly from unintentional falls, unintentional poisoning, and traffic collisions.

While not all accidents can be prevented, some can be. Carelessness is often a reason why accidents occur. Therefore, to help prevent accidents from happening, you should exercise proper precautions for whatever you’re doing all the time.

Follow safety rules or guidelines (such as wearing a seatbelt while you are traveling in a vehicle) proactively to protect yourself as best you can from being the victim of an accident or dying as the result of an accident.

If you’d need information on funeral planning at funeral homes in Bedford Heights, OH, our compassionate and experienced team at E. F. Boyd & Son Funeral Home is here to help.

Before cremations as part of cremation services offered in Cleveland, OH, there are several things that you and your family will need to do as soon as possible after your loved one dies.

The first thing that you will need to do after your loved one dies is to obtain a legal pronouncement of death. If your loved one died in a hospital, the medical staff pronounce them die and note the time when they died. However, if your loved one died at home and was not under hospice care, then you should call emergency services. Your loved one will be transported to the hospital where they will be legally pronounced dead.

If your loved one was in hospice care at home, then the hospice care agency should be called. A medical professional from the hospice agency will come to your home and they will pronounce your loved one’s death. They will also prepare your loved one’s body for transportation to the funeral home and will notify the funeral home when your loved one is ready to be taken to the funeral home.

If your loved one is an organ donor and is admitted to the hospital during the final days of their illness or is in the process of dying when they are admitted to the hospital, make sure that the hospital knows they are an organ donor. Organ transplants can take up to 48 hours to arrange, so hospital personnel needs to be able to take appropriate action the maintain organ viability while those transplants are being set up.

If your loved one is an organ donor and died at home, but was not under hospice care, contact the closest hospital to let them know and be sure to let first responders also know. If your loved one was in hospice care at home and is an organ donor, make sure to remind the hospice agency when you contact them.

Next, you’ll need to contact immediate family and close friends to let them know your loved one has died. The most personal way to do this is with phone calls, although some families are okay with texts or emails. Assign each family member there a group of people to notify, so that you’re not doing all the notifications by yourself. Do not announce the death on social media until everyone who needs to know about death has been personally contacted.

The next thing that will be done is arrangements made with the funeral home for transporting your loved one’s body. The hospital will make these arrangements if your loved one died in the hospital or was pronounced dead at the hospital. If your loved one was in-home hospice care, the responding hospice medical professional will make these arrangements.

After these things have been done, you will need to make sure pets and dependents, if applicable, are cared for. Usually, family members will ensure sure that all dependents and pets have a place to stay temporarily until long-term plans can be formulated.

If your loved one lived by themselves, be sure that all of their property is secured. If you are able, have a family member or close friend stay at their home until a time when decisions can be made about what to do with the property (keep it or sell it).

If your loved one who has died was still working, you will need to let their employer’s Human Resources department know that they have died. Be sure to remember to ask about any pay your loved one is still owed, any benefits that they are entitled to, and whether they had a life insurance policy through their employer.

For information about cremation services in Cleveland, OH, our compassionate and experienced team at E. F. Boyd & Son Funeral Home is here to help.