Memorial Services

Funerals and memorial services provide a very important function during the period of bereavement. They provide the ritual needed to process grieving and the ceremony so desired to commemorate life. Traditionally, when a person dies, his or her family will arrange a funeral. This very formal process begins when, upon the death, the family calls a funeral home (or mortuary). The mortuary is responsible for taking custody of the body, and preparing it for viewing. A pre-funeral viewing for family and close friends takes place at the mortuary. Then, on the day of the funeral, the body is usually viewed in an open casket at a church, as part of a religious ceremony.

In some ceremonies, the families choose to keep the casket closed, and the body is present but not viewed. After the church service, those present proceed to the cemetery where, at the grave site, the clergyman shares his final blessings and concludes the funeral services.

Those who do not wish to pursue the more formal and structured funeral ceremony, may opt for a memorial service. Technically, the only difference between a funeral and a memorial service is that the body is not present in a memorial service. However, the absence of the body allows for a wider range of possibilities with regard to timing and location. With a funeral, the preparation of the body for viewing and the details of the burial necessitate expediency. Thus, a funeral tends to take place as soon after the death as possible.

The Advantages of a Memorial Services

But with a memorial service, families can take their time with planning and be more accommodating to loved ones living at a distance. Since there is no need to accommodate a casket, the choice of location for a memorial service is much broader.

There are several other reasons why a family might choose a memorial service instead of a funeral. Often, the circumstances of death or the choice of cremation make the body unavailable. Sometimes the body is returned to a hometown, but loved ones in another location want to honor the deceased with a memorial service. In this case, there may be multiple services--a family funeral in the hometown and a memorial service in the last place the deceased resided.

There are other circumstances that necessitate multiple services. Where there are multiple deaths, for example, the individual families may want to bury their loved ones separately, but also commemorate the common event. This was seen in the news with the 911 incident and the Columbine memorials.

Considering Cost

Cost is another reason some families prefer the memorial service. A memorial service can be considerably less expensive. When the body does not need to be prepared (e.g. embalmed) and there are no casket or grave costs, the financial outlay is considerably lower. Also, families are able to choose more affordable venues for memorial services.

Though the funeral and memorial services are very similar with regard to form and substance, the memorial service has become increasingly popular because many feel that the flexibility of the memorial service allows families to be more creative. Families have more freedom to innovate and craft a ceremony that more closely reflects the deceased and how they feel about him or her. They have more time and space to update traditional rituals, and pick and choose traditions that are most appropriate.