Many of us have been fortunate to have loving, supportive parents growing up. They’ve loved and supported us through our ups and downs, offering their advice along the way. It’s hard to imagine life without them, really. But, unfortunately, most of us will ultimately be involved in planning a funeral or cremation for one or both of our parents. It’s so important to make sure that we’re all planning ahead. Death is certain, yes. It’s the when and how that is left up in the air.

That’s why funeral and cremation pre-planning is so important. It has nothing to do with money and everything to do with ensuring that our parents’ wishes are carried out. While it’s tough to broach the subject, it’s also extremely important to have the conversation.

Wanting Your Parents to Pre-plan Is Not Selfish

It’s ok to want your parents to pre-arrange their funeral or cremation. Think about all of life’s huge events. They all require a degree of planning. Can you imagine what a wedding would look like if it was thrown together at the last minute? How about buying a house without any consideration of price and location? It might be absurd to imagine, but people do this with funerals and cremations all the time.

Funerals and cremations are important rituals and it’s not selfish to treat them as such. It’s responsible to plan for the future.

Being prepared gives everyone peace of mind. We like to think that we’ll be fortunate enough to see our loved ones pass away in their sleep after a long, healthy life. In many cases, death is unexpected. Pre-planning while a person is healthy ensures that there’s adequate time to walk through all of their wishes. 

Why Not Plan For Yourself?

If you’re at the age where you’re confronting your parents’ mortality, building your parents’ funeral or cremation plan will almost certainly lead you to think about how you’d like to be remembered. If you have a family of your own, it’s a worthwhile exercise to pre-plan for yourself. Nothing is written in stone, so you can always revise the plan if your circumstances change.

Plus, there’s no cost to pre-plan. Pre-arranging does not mean pre-paying. It simply means having a structured arrangement laid out so that end of life arrangements are handled with dignity.

Funeral and cremation planning might be difficult to talk about, but it definitely shouldn’t be avoided. If you’re having a difficult time starting the conversation, we can help.