Recognizing When Death is Near

With Cleveland Heights, OH funeral services, you will have everything you need to take care of your loved one after death. However, you may be caring for a family member who has a long-term terminal illness and you may be wondering if you’ll know and how you’ll know that death is nearing for them.

As a person is nearing death, the body physically begins to shut down. This is a progressive process can start a few months before death actually occurs.

One of the first signs will be increased sleeping. Your loved one may sleep as much as 16-20 hours a day because of changes in the body’s metabolism. Near the very end of life, your loved one may not wake at all for two or three days before death. It’s important, though, to talk with your loved one right up to the last breath, because hearing is the last sense that is lost.

As death becomes imminent, your loved one will want less to eat and drink. This is because the body is trying to conserve how much energy it expends. Don’t try to force your loved one to eat or drink if they don’t want to.

Your loved one’s body will start to cool down, especially hands, feet, and limbs. This is a sign that blood circulation is decreasing and being reserved to sustain vital organs.

Another sign that death is imminent is increased confusion (even if your loved one doesn’t have any kind of dementia). Your loved one may be confused about who you and other family members are and may call you by the name of someone, such as their mother or father, who’s been dead for a long time. This is an expected result of the metabolism changes associated with the body shutting down.

The closer death gets, the more erratic breathing will become. If hospice is not already on board at this point, it’s a good time to bring them in to help. They will be able to make your loved one comfortable and will show you how to keep them comfortable as they begin to take their last breaths.

Some people get extremely restless right before death. This is due to oxygen deprivation in the brain. If your loved one experiences this, don’t try to restrain them, but talk with them in soothing manner, and rub their arm or forehead gently. Reading, playing their favorite music, or just talking about good memories may help decrease their restlessness.

At the very end of life, your loved one will likely experience some sort of withdrawal from life. This usually happens a day or two prior to death. They will either be non-responsive or in a comatose-like state. Talk to them anyway, even when there’s no response.

It’s not unusual, near the very end of life, for people to hallucinate. They may see or talk to people who’ve already died. This is normal, so stay calm and let the process play out.

If your loved one is somewhat alert at the very end of life, they will likely want only a few people around them. They may just want you around them. This is for their comfort, so accommodate their needs, even if other family members get upset that they’re not allowed to be with them up to the end.

If you’d like to learn about Cleveland Heights, OH funeral services, our compassionate and experienced team at E. F. Boyd & Son Funeral Home is here to help. You can visit us at our funeral home at 2155 E. 89th Street, Cleveland, OH 44106, or you can call us today at (216) 791-0770.

Losing a Spouse

Leave a reply

Among the cremations services in Cleveland Heights, OH that are offered are grief resources. For people who have lost spouses to death, these resources can be very beneficial in the early days, weeks, and months after a loved one’s death.

There is a unique type of bereavement that follows the death of a spouse. Whether the spouse was a life partner for a few years or for many years, the union that brought two people together as one is a very special bond.

When people marry, a team is formed that will face the ups and downs, the triumphs and the failures, the good days and the bad days, and all the days in between, together. Usually children come into the picture, whether they are biological or they are adopted, and a family unit is formed.

The team of spouses raises the children, providing for them, educating them, and making sure they are prepared to fly out of the nest when the time comes. Along the way, there are many team meetings, team consternations, team tears, and team laughter, but the team of spouses grows stronger and tighter with each passing day, month, and year.

After the children leave home to make their own lives, the team of spouses gets its second honeymoon, and often these years are when even deeper bonds are forged and the team becomes more solidified. While each spouse may be working, may have different interests, and may spend time with different friends from time to time, they usually spend more time together than any other time since they were dating and then first married.

They depend on each other, help each other, encourage each other, and look out for each other. As they settle into their golden years, with grown children and grandchildren often far away, they become more intertwined with each other as a support system.

Then suddenly – or gradually, with terminal diseases – one spouse dies. The surviving spouse is lost, because half of who they were is gone. There is shock. There is numbness. There is the battle between the reality of the death and the inconceivability of it. The surviving spouse will usually go stoically through the funeral process because their hearts are just not yet capable of absorbing the loss.

However, once the family leaves to go their homes, and the surviving spouse is alone, then the reality of the other spouse’s death sets in. All the big things and little things that left with the spouse’s death become larger than life. Grief and loneliness, often very intense, follow.

As the surviving spouse adjusts to the empty house, the missing part of themselves, and a whole different life than they had planned, some of the grief and loneliness can be eased by joining a grief support group for spouses.

However, not all therapy comes from sitting in a room with other people who’ve had a similar loss, so it’s important to try to find opportunities to get out of the house and to get involved with something that matters, whether that’s taking classes for something you’ve always wanted to do or its joining a group that supports causes that you support, or it’s volunteering your time for elderly people or for a non-profit organization. Being around people and doing something that the surviving spouse loves can ease the grief and the loneliness to some degree.

For more information about cremations services in Cleveland Heights, OH, our compassionate and experienced team at E. F. Boyd & Son Funeral Home is here to help. You can visit our funeral home at 2165 E. 89th Street, Cleveland, OH 44106, or you can call us today at (216) 791-0770.

The Elements of a Funeral Service

Leave a reply

At funeral homes in Cleveland, OH, the elements of a funeral service come together to lovingly and respectfully honor the memory of a loved one who has died. These elements work together to bring comfort and hope to the grieving family and to the mourners.

The first element of a funeral service is traditionally what are known as readings. These may be poems, Bible scriptures, or sections of prose that were either favorites of the deceased or are chosen by the family because the readings remind them of their loved one. One person may do all the readings, or several people may be chosen to do each of the readings.

The next element of a funeral service are eulogies. Some funeral services have just one eulogy, while other funeral services have several eulogies. Eulogies are given either by family members or by very close friends of the deceased. Eulogies are intended to give insights into who the deceased was in relationships and life. They are very intimate portraits that may bring tears and laughter, but they show honor and respect for a life well lived.

Sermons or a spiritual message are usually the next element in a funeral service. While this doesn’t have to be done by a clergy member, it usually is. This is the part of the service that can offer great comfort and abiding hope to the deceased’s family and to the mourners who have gathered for the service.

What happens after death is the focus of this part of the funeral service. There is the reminder that all pain, sorrow, suffering, and tears of physical life are now gone for the deceased, and a new better horizon awaits them. Often the words of I Corinthians 15 and I Thessalonians 4, as well as Revelation 21:4 are read as part of the sermon as encouragement.

The next element of a funeral service is music. The music may be interspersed between the other elements or it may be played after the sermon or spiritual message. The choices of music for funeral services are endless. Some people choose the deceased’s favorite song. Others choose gospel songs or hymns that point to be future. Other people choose contemporary music that has saying goodbye to someone you love as its theme.

The funeral director will work with you on the music you choose and make sure that any equipment or instruments (if it’s being done live) are set up and ready to go at whatever point in the funeral service the music is being performed.

The last element in a funeral service is usually a prayer. This is a prayer for the deceased, but all for the family and the mourners. It asks for guidance, comfort, blessings, and help for all those who knew and loved the deceased and now will have to move forward in life without them.

After the prayer, the funeral director will make announcements regarding times and locations for graveside services and burial, and, if these are taking place the next day, the funeral director will provide the time that everyone who wants to ride in the funeral procession should meet at the funeral home.

If you’d like to learn more about funeral services at funeral homes in Cleveland, OH, our compassionate and experienced team at E. F. Boyd & Son Funeral Home is here to help. You can visit us at our funeral home at 2155 E. 89th Street, Cleveland, OH 44106, or you can call us today at (216) 791-0770.

All About Direct Cremations

Leave a reply

With Cleveland, OH direct cremations, no type of service is held before the cremation occurs. People choose direct cremation for many reasons. Sometimes it’s easier to for friends and family to plan for travel and time off of work to meet at a later date for a memorial service or to scatter the cremation remains (known as cremains). Sometimes, the cremains are being transported back to another place (hometown, family home, or family cemetery, for example) and direct cremation is the most efficient way to get the cremains to their final resting place.

With direct cremations, the deceased is transported from the location where they died directly to the crematorium. The family will meet with the funeral director to authorize the cremation, provide information for death certificates, and provide what they want included in the deceased’s obituary. The family will also bring clothes for the deceased.

The funeral director will obtain the necessary permits for the cremation, and will over the entire process. The process of cremation is very precise and very thorough.

The deceased is treated with dignity and respect throughout the process. Hearing aids, glasses, and jewelry will be given to the family (there are many places to donate hearing aids and glasses to help other people hear and see, so it’s a great way to pay tribute to a deceased loved one).

If there are any medical devices, such as pacemakers or implanted defibrillators, implanted in the deceased, these will be removed because the lithium batteries in them can damage the crematory.

The deceased will be dressed and will be identified by a family member or by a current photo. An indestructible tag is affixed to the deceased (this tag will remain throughout the cremation process) and the deceased is placed into a fully-combustible container, which is then placed into the crematory.

Cremation, which is a combination of intense heat and evaporated, usually takes about two to three hours. Once cremation is complete, all that is left are bone fragments. These will be cooled down and then any metal (fillings, screws, pins, and plates) left will be removed.

Once all the metal is removed, the bone fragments are then pulverized until they have a very fine consistency. These are put into a plastic bag with the tag that was affixed at the beginning of the cremation process. The plastic bag is then put into either a temporary container (if the family hasn’t yet purchased an urn) or the urn that the family purchased.

The family member who’s authorized to pick up the cremains from the funeral home is contacted to let them know that the cremains are ready.

The family then can decide what to do with the cremains and they can decide how best to memorialize their loved one.

Traditionally, cremains have been scattered in the deceased’s favorite place or a place that has special meaning for the deceased and the family. There are many other options for using the cremains, such as cremation jewelry, artwork that has the cremains mixed in with the paint, tattoos that use ink that has been mixed with the cremains, as well as other choices.

For more information about Cleveland, OH direct cremations, our compassionate and experienced team at E. F. Boyd & Son Funeral Home is here to help. You can visit our funeral home at 2165 E. 89th Street, Cleveland, OH 44106, or you can call us today at (216) 791-0770.

Blog