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Are you prepared if your family experiences an unfortunate tragedy? Are you aware of your family members' final wishes? Do your loved ones know what your final wishes are in the event that something happens to you? If funeral pre-planning isn’t something you’ve considered to date, then you could risk leaving everything in the hands of your grieving loved ones.

Funeral pre-planning in Vancouver has made great strides through the years. In addition to traditional services held in houses of worship, they can now accommodate nearly any request, including eco-friendly funeral services. Do you know what you want for your funeral?

If you’re curious about funeral pre-planning and how it can benefit your family members in the event of your untimely passing, then you’ll want to invest 20 minutes in this episode of the Forever in their Hearts podcast. In this edition, host Eric Reynolds interviews Dale Martin, Jr., President of Martin Brothers Funeral Services, about how funeral homes can help you in your time of loss, and the benefits of not having to go it alone.

Why Planning a Funeral Is Not a One-Man Task

If you think that you can plan a funeral all on your own, then you are mistaken. A licensed funeral director is needed for every type of service, from simple cremations to full-blown, catered funerals held on a golf course. When people fail to plan ahead of time, a funeral director must walk them each stage of the process. Dale shares a stressful experience one family had that could have been avoided with funeral pre-planning.

Using the expertise of a licensed funeral director opens up options for every stage of the planning, from transporting your departed loved one to the funeral chapel to determining whether or not some wishes are even legal, such as places to scatter cremated remains.

Next Dale explains that the 5 to 8 days after losing a loved one are the most sensitive of the grieving process, and how human contact of just getting the family together is as important as sympathetic words shared by friends and loved ones.

If you haven’t considered funeral pre-planning, then you are leaving the personal touches of your final wishes up to friends and family and risking added tension to an already delicate time.

Do You Know All the Services Available for Your Final Wishes?

Dale shares that most people are unaware of all the personal touches that a funeral home can add to the services so that your final wishes are followed to the smallest detail. Some of these small touches that carry a lot of weight include hiring the right musician, arranging for a minister or other speaker, or selecting the graphics and text for your memory cards. Dale goes on to answer the following:

-What are some of the ways that pre-planning helps my family?
-Are there any media services that funeral homes offer?
-What are other benefits of a funeral home’s obituary services?
-Am I allowed to choose a different location for my funeral?
-What benefits are there to using a family-owned funeral home?

Funeral pre-planning offers so many benefits, both to you and your loved ones. Because there are no guarantees in life, even if your health is in tip top shape you should have a plan for your final wishes. If you haven’t stopped to consider taken this step in planning, then now is the time to begin.

Let the Funeral Home Fill in the Blanks for You

Earlier in the podcast, listeners heard Dale share a comment that a family member made after one funeral, which was that, “People don’t know what it is they don’t know.” If you are not sure about everything that’s available for planning your final wishes, then you might seek out a funeral director in Vancouver to help fill in those missing blanks.

Next Dale explains that the title of Funeral Director contains the word “direct” for a reason. In addition to directing families through each stage of funeral planning, or pre-planning as the case might be, the funeral director can also use questions and phrases to gently guide the conversation so that families naturally share their loved one’s final wishes.

Something else that funeral homes might offer is an optional program called “after care”. After the funeral, family members return to their daily schedules while the spouse or significant other is left with loose ends to tie up, like settling out bank and other financial accounts or applying for benefits. This program can provide a person to help with closing out those details.

Then Dale briefly addresses another program that provides support through grief recovery. This is a topic that is near and dear to Dale, so be sure and listen for more about it in a future episode of the podcast.

Are You Ready to Let Your Family Know Your Final Wishes Known?

Do you want to save your loved ones the stress, time, and money of trying to guess about your final wishes? Are you ready to plan out the final wishes for your funeral? Who you would contact to arrange funeral pre-planning? Tune in now to the entire podcast, and if you have questions or comment to share afterwards we’d love to hear them in the area below.

A very simple way to get started with pre-planning is to visit the Martin Brothers Funeral Services website at http://mbfunerals.com/vancouver and click on the green button labeled "Pre-Plan My Funeral Wishes Now" and then fill out the relevant information on the next page. Martin Brothers Funeral Services will send you a wallet-sized ID card and a beautiful portfolio with all your wishes inside. If you have any questions please contact our office.

Martin Brothers Funeral Services

Vancouver: Funeral Services Centre
3398 Dunbar Street
Vancouver, BC Canada V6S 2C1
Telephone Number: 778.330.7799
Toll Free Number: 1.800.382.2901
Fax Number: 778.330.7633

Chapel Of Hope: Funeral Home
1270 Ryder Street
Hope, BC Canada V0X 1L4
Telephone Number: 778.330.7799
Fax Number: 604.869.2295

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MartinBrothersFuneralChapelsBcLtd
Twitter: @MartinBrothers1
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