Wanted: Advice on Cremation Services

In My Humble Opinion
1

Yes, it’s getting to that point that I need to consider what to do with my spouse’s mortal remains. He’s not dead yet, but I would prefer to have a plan in place rather than having to face a hypothetical situation where it’s, say, 3 am and the nursing home/hospital/whatever wants me to decide in the next three or four hours where the body is going while I’m sobbing piteously. I mean, this whole thing sucks badly enough, why not try to plan ahead and hopefully relieve some of the stress, right?

I’ve never had to shop for this before. I somehow have been winding up with custody of the relatives’ ashes over time (in no small part to being one of the dwindling pool of survivors), but someone else always handled this part of it. Now it’s me.

Any advice?

Anything to look for?

Anything to avoid/pitfalls/cautions?

Don’t think I need the answer really fast, but certainly faster than I’d like.

2

The hospital should have an ombudsman or a chaplain service. Find that person and ask them what two funeral homes the hospital works with most often.

Call the funeral homes and ask what their cremation process and prices are. They will be kind and gentle and should be pretty straightforward about the various costs and services. There’s probably going to be some ‘upselling’ and padding, but they should be clear about what’s legally required and what’s an extra for making the family feel better.

Talk to them both, back to back if you can emotionally / time-constraints manage it, then pick one quickly based on whatever metrics or differences seem important to you in the moment, and don’t waffle or second-guess yourself after. Any choice will be competent and it will be one less thing to be worried about or trying to deal with later on.
I am so so sorry that you have to plan all this.

3

He is not currently at a hospital and I have no plans to take him to one.

I am sure as hell not talking to the “social worker” (yes, she has the degree but not the personality) at the local hospital who pretty much did the opposite of what we said we wanted. (Yes, I am still angry, why do you ask?)

I have the contact information on several businesses providing the service, getting that is not the problem, I’m more concerned about how to choose among them.

4

Sorry, the above may have come across as more harsh than intended, that happens sometimes when I’m under stress.

5

Assuming you’d like to keep him at home as long as possible, talk to hospice. Having been through a similar situation over the past several months, I can’t emphasize this enough. That way, your scenario of “a situation where it’s, say, 3 am and the nursing home/hospital/whatever wants me to decide in the next three or four hours where the body is going while I’m sobbing piteously” will likely not happen. They’ll talk you through everything that has to be done (including contacting funeral homes), provide support & aides, and pretty much be there for you.

Our hospice was arranged through my Mom’s oncologist; I texted her the day after Christmas, emotional and overwhelmed, and she put everything in place. Within a few hours I had nurses and a really good social worker visiting us at my Mom’s house. It was the one ray of comfort in a really shitty situation.

6

I am so sorry you are going through this.

One thing to decide is how much you want the cremation service to do, and what you want to do. In many areas, there are low-cost providers who will pick up the body at your house, take care of the legal formalities, and deliver you a plain container a few days later. That’s all they do, and their prices are low.

Other places are “full service”–they’ll arrange the memorial service, provide a preacher or musician or whatever you want at the service, prepare an obituary for the local paper, arrange for the disposal of the ashes or sell you a fancy urn, etc. Expect to pay considerably more, but it may be worth it depending on what you and your family want.

7

Know that if your husband passes at home while under the care of hospice, they’ll have a funeral home come and get him but you do NOT have to use that company’s services. When my former MIL died unexpectedly at home, my former FIL was in the hospital ICU and no one knew which funeral home to bring her to (she had a pre-paid plan). She ended up at the wrong home, we called later and corrected the mistake, and everyone was a complete professional about it.

The rest of the above advice is sound; call, ask lots of questions, and go with the people you feel comfortable with.

8

The apology is appreciated but not necessary: I shouldn’t have assumed he was in hospital.

9

You can go to the funeral home of your choice right now and choose to make pre-arrangements. The funeral home we used for my mother even let my dad plan his own future arrangements online, right down to choosing an urn.

Or maybe they won’t upsell at all. Beyond slightly overestimating how many copies of my mother’s death certificate we might need, I don’t recall the director making any suggestions that would’ve cost more. He was very kind and professional, and I hope Broomstick encounters someone very like that in her area, too.

10

From what I’ve heard, that’s not a bad mistake to make. Get as many as you can for free.

11

I am sorry to hear that you will be needing such advice.

There are some unscrupulous funeral directors out there who may try to sell you goods and services you don’t need, especially embalming and caskets. When my father died we were misled into believing that buying a casket was required for cremation. We found out later that the metal casket we paid for wasn’t actually required by law. The crematorium’s policies did require a container, but a sturdy cardboard box would have sufficed. In most states, embalming is not legally required, but if cremation is delayed more than 24 hours (or 36 or 48 depending on the state), either embalming or refrigeration is required. In some states you can work directly with the crematorium but in others you have to work through a funeral home. There is a book by Lisa Carlson called Caring for the Dead that outlines the legal requirements and practical matters state-by-state. Unfortunately there hasn’t been a new edition since 1997 so some of it is likely to be out of date.

12

Lisa Carlson is also the co-author of a more recent book called Final rights : reclaiming the American way of death (2011). I haven’t seen it so I’m not sure if it has the same kind of state-by-state legal information as her earlier book.

13

I tried to contact the local “burn and scatter” operation.
Got a call asking if I’d prefer to meet the salesman tomorrow morning or afternoon.

I route I take passes a small building (prob. an old firehouse) with a brass plaque near the door “All Faiths Cremation Service”.

I have to believe they know how to retrieve a body. Neptune in SF used a heavy service van (neighbor was in failing health when he moved in; it was his last home).

If you can find such a cremation operation, dealing directly would be an advantage.

IIRC, the big “burn and scatter” operations were offering pre-paid service for $1600.

Someone here (SD) once said his lowest option (he had reason to find the service) was $600 if you brought the body to them.

14

I’m sorry to hear that you are in this situation.

In terms of a plan. What do you actually want? Do you want to retain the ashes of your loved one, or have them scattered/interred? I think that’s pretty much the only decision you really need to make in advance - you can plan more than that, but you also can plan just to let the professionals step in and take care of it all - the situation, although very exceptional to you, is utterly routine to them.

15

I want the ashes back. I already have several ornamental urns (dad went a little nuts ordering one for mom back in the day).

16

I don’t know if he is a Veteran, but our local place had a special discount for veterans.

17

What about the Neptune Society? I evidently showed a bit of interest many years ago because I’ve been getting regular info since. It seems easy, but I’m undecided about what I want, and they don’t give much of an idea of costs at this point. I would like to have everything decided though, before I go.

18

My sympathies. My husband was not religious, but sometimes he’d volunteer his services to a small church near us, and this turned out to be a good resource for me later when he was dying. People there had personal connections to a large funeral home which was also nearby. Husband was not exactly helpful in this area and left all details to me, all I knew was that he didn’t want to be buried. Hospice was not very helpful either when it came to final arrangements, but the hospital SW would have been had I needed her - she was great, and was accessible even after he’d left the hospital. Anyway, my first contact with the funeral home was about a week before his death. I thought I had more time than that.

I had a memorial service for him, that was the priority…no burial service, no casket, etc. His remains returned to me in a cardboard box and I bought urns later from Stardust Memorials online, at the funeral director’s recommendation. So, the bill at the end was not very substantial but it may as well have been half a million dollars at the time, and the payment terms were very easy: pay what you can when you can. Which I did. I really hope you find one of these people, they are out there in the business.

19

Against all Jewish tradition, because he wanted to go out the cheapest way possible, my father was cremated and placed in a non-ornamental urn (it looked like a coffee container) in a columbarium where many professors emeriti are interred. The space was only about $100 because of the years he had put in at the university, and IIRC, the fact that he had tenure and emeritus status.

The cremation itself cost $500, 20 years ago. I assume it has gone up, but this was in New York, where it probably is a little more expensive than in other parts of the country. I would expect the cost to be upwards of $500, but not ridiculously so. $500 did not include anything else, like transportation or the cost of the urn.

There are lots of choices for disposing of a cremated body, including keeping it on the mantle.

But since you said something about having relatives’ ashes come down to you, FWIW, some cemeteries do provide small graves for ashes. The funerals I’ve been to for cremated people were put in the ground in biodegradable containers. The graves were very small, and in parts of the cemetery where the terrain was uneven, or something, and not suitable for larger graves, and so, as I understand it, cheap.

I have no idea what you plan as far as disposition of ashes, but I remember from my father that is makes some difference. If they are going to be scattered, they go through some kind of grinding process to make them fine like flour. If they are going to be interred, they are not ground, and so the cost is a little cheaper.

I’m sorry I don’t know how to tell you where to go, or who to talk to. I guess you don’t go to church or synagogue. It still might not be out of line to cold-call a church as ask for advice. I happen to know that the Episcopal Church approves of cremation, because there’s one around here with its own columbarium, so that’s a church you could try. All you’d have to do is ask who they recommend when a parishioner passes away and wanted to be cremated.

I’m so sorry you had to start this thread. I want to wish you “luck,” but that doesn’t seem quite right. I guess I can wish you the minimum of hassle under the circumstances.

20

My father’s cremation was around $1,000 about fifteen years ago. usedtobe mentioned a $1600 plan. I guess this fairly well brackets the likeliest price range.

An in-law passed away, and his family had the ashes put into a rock-salt reliquary, which was dropped (legally) into the Colorado River. The salt melts and the ashes are scattered.