Gone are the days of having a generic funeral or memorial service for your loved one. Your family and friends all have their own unique quirks and personality traits that make them who they are as well as endear them to you and others around them. In these days of services that place an emphasis on honoring and celebrating the life of the one who has passed away, finding the perfect memorial card allows you to do so much more easily. Use the ideas outlined below to help you tap into those personality traits you love and that your loved one is most well known for to help you cherish their memory.
Crafting the Kind of Service Your Loved One Would Want
There is no doubt about it – losing a loved one is one of the hardest things that you will ever have to deal with during your lifetime. There are ways to help ease your pain, though. Not only can carefully planning the way you memorialize your loved one help make your pain a little duller now, taking the time to put careful thought into the items that are present at the service can help keep their memory alive and more vivid for years to come. It can also help those who attend the service to better cope with the loss of a person who is very special to them as well.
Choices Abound as a Way to Cherish Those You Love
Whether your loved one was the type of person who loved excitement, glitz and glamour or they were more of a simple and no-frills type of person, there is a memorial card that will perfectly reflect their unique personality traits. Honoring your husband for his years of service in the armed forces – a time period that he loved and cherished deeply – by using a photo of him in full uniform on the memorial cards you choose, for example, instantly tells those who see it how very important this accomplishment was to him. Simple and vividly displaying how a picture says a thousand words, everyone who sees it will know instantly just how important his armed services life was to him.
Say it With the Right Words
Their spirituality is important to many people. This is also often a trait that your loved one is eager to pass along to others, making it a cherished memory when it comes to time spent with them. Perhaps your grandmother always chose a special person to say grace at the table before anyone could eat. Whether the gathering was a large family reunion or a more intimate family time, being chosen by the matriarch of the family to say that blessing was both a privilege and an honor. Including her favorite scripture on her memorial card will instantly bring back those cherished memories for anyone who was privileged to be a part of them, ensuring that they will always be kept alive.
Using memorial cards to cherish your loved one's memory is an easy way to do so – and the memories can last a lifetime.
There is a great deal to be said for planning ahead when it comes to memorializing your loved one. While no one likes to be reminded that eventually their loved one's life will come to an end, this is an issue that is much easier to deal with when you are not in the heat of the moment. By taking the time to plan something now, before a crisis hits or you are under an enormous time pressure to make an important decision, you can better weigh all your different options when it comes to finding the right memorial printed cards for your loved one.
Choosing the Right Time
Whether your grandparents are in poor health and their final arrangements are on your mind or your parents are in the midst of downsizing as they ready themselves for retirement, there is not a one size fits all time that is right to bring up this issue. The aforementioned scenarios are common ones that often bring these life changing issues to the forefront. In the case of your grandparents, though it can be difficult for you to acknowledge, they likely have thought a great deal about their final arrangements. They might need some guidance in choosing the right memorial printed card that would best reflect the way they want to be remembered.
Life Changes Are a Natural Fit
In the case of your parents, as they seek to tidy up their employee health care plans and IRAs, discussing their thoughts and plans for their final arrangements is a natural progression of those other activities. Given that your parents are already in a planning mode, sitting down with them to hammer out items such as the type of service they want – if any – as well as the details of the service and whether they want to be cremated or buried gives them the type of control they will likely desire.
When Your Loved One is Seriously Ill
A loved one that is seriously ill puts a great deal of stress on you – mentally and emotionally. One of the things that you often have to face is that the end of their life could be approaching more quickly than you ever imagined it could. While it can be difficult to do, taking the time to decide the type of memorial printed cards would suit them most can provide you with many bittersweet moments. It is a sad occasion that makes it necessary to complete this task but it also gives you the opportunity to bask in those memories that you love best about them.
Memorial printed cards make it easy to personalize the service to meet your loved one's unique personality. Is your father a die-hard sports fan who will always be remembered for his love and faithfulness to his team no matter how badly they did in the playoffs? There are memorial printed cards that can honor his love. There are also cards that can pay homage to your daughter's love of dancing and all things pink.
Deciding what to include in a memorial program may be one of the harder parts of planning a memorial service. You want to make sure that what you include truly encapsulates the life of your loved one and all they meant to you. It is also good to make sure that your program provides all the necessary information for those who will be receiving it. So what in particular should you include?
Informative
One of the first things a memorial printing service will ask you for when collecting the content of a memorial program is the date of birth and the date of death of your loved one. More useful information to provide is the order of the service, or when things will be presented to the attendants of the memorial service, and the date, time, and place of the funeral, so that those who wish to can attend both. If you have a larger memorial program, you may even wish to include part of the deceased’s obituary for information about their family and life, though this is not as necessary as the aforementioned material.
Meaningful Words
Memorial programs usually include beautifully written words to honor the life of the deceased. It may be a favorite passage of Bible scripture, or part of a poem that they loved, or even a quote that they repeated often. Some families may know exactly what words to put in the memorial, but others may have a harder time, and so many memorial printing services will provide a list of texts to choose from. Whatever you choose should have meaning behind it both to the deceased and their family, in order to properly pay homage to them.
Photographs and Images
The most important piece of the memorial program is an image of the deceased by which to remember them by. It should be a recent and good quality photograph, with a clear view of the deceased from either the shoulders or the waist up. Ideally, they should be smiling and wearing one of their best outfits, though they could also be working at a job they love or doing a favorite activity. Inside the program, you may wish to include additional images, such as the deceased with children or grandchildren, or an image of something they loved, such as a favorite sports team or favorite animal. Additional images, depending on your printing service, may come at additional cost, however.
Program Theme
Should your memorial program have a simple theme, an elegant one, or a fun one? Ultimately, that is your decision, based on the kind of life your loved one lived. Were they elegant and classy, or did your loved one lead a heroic and active life? Were they outspoken, or did they prefer to stay modest? A good memorial printing service will provide dozens of program themes for you to choose from, often with matching products such as memorial cards and prayer cards. A matching theme can bring an entire service together and provide stronger memories for the attendees of the service.
Planning a memorial is one of the last things any person wants to be forced to do for a loved one, but as unwelcome as it is, it is often an inevitable thing to have to do. When preparing for a memorial,... More »
