I am often surprised and genuinely intrigued when I hear stories about families and their need for memorialization done the way they want to do it. Today, more than ever, we are seeing so many different types of creative usages of memorialization that are being initiated by the family.

With my own family, we saw the significance in placing a men's bracelet filled with locks of our hair on my father when he passed away.  It meant a lot to each of us to know that a piece of ourselves would be with him in his final resting place.

There are many stories about customizing urns in ways that matter most to a family.  Davis-Whitehall, one of the finest manufacturers of hardwood urns in America, shared with me a photo of two urns - one for a young woman who had passed away in 1995 and the other for her mother who passed away in 2006.  When the mother died, the family chose a customized urn for her and for the daughter whose cremated remains most likely were in some type of temporary container until that time.  The family told the funeral professional that they would be keeping the urns and using them as bookends. Not only was their photo and name, etc. on the front of the urn, but a clip art image depicting their individual interests was placed on the side of the urns that would be facing outward.  That's creative customization!

Just this week, we learned about a young man dying of cancer who is selling ads on his urn in order to help out his wife and parents with his cremation expenses.  It saddened me when I read about the story of such a young man who will have a short life.  However, it was interesting to hear how he is using his creativeness on decorating his urn.  During his interview with the media, he jokingly said:  "Who wants a plain old urn?".

A colleague of mine shares a story about the family that found importance in personalizing a loved one's cardboard container prior to the cremation. Again, personalized, creative and certainly something that that the family saw value in as they came together and expressed their loving thoughts to the deceased.

These memorialization examples are just a small portion of the many stories I have heard throughout my time in the funeral profession.  I know that all of you have similar stories.  I, along with many others, would love to hear about them so feel free to share them.

Personalized, creative and value-driven - it definitely stresses the point of the importance of listening to families and learning what it is important to them.