Every family is different, and not everyone wants the same type of funeral. Funeral practices are influenced by religious and cultural traditions, costs and personal preferences. These factors help determine whether the funeral will be elaborate or simple, public or private, religious or secular, and where it will be held. They also influence whether the body will be present at the funeral, if there will be a viewing or visitation, and if so whether the casket will be opened or closed.
We understand the value of our services and the importance of personalization, which is why we offer a wide choice of personalization services to help make each service as unique as possible.
Harkey Funeral Home maintains a tradition of personal attention to our families' needs and individual desires.
The funeral, or memorial service, has long been a ritual in our culture. When a loved one passes away, we immediately start making funeral plans, often without even thinking; holding a memorial is simply what people do. The problem with this familiarity is that it may sometimes prevent us from stopping to think about what the memorial service is for.
Like any ritual, the funeral service is important to maintaining a healthy culture. Funerals, like weddings and holidays, serve as landmarks on our journey, both as people and as individuals. It allows us, as people, to mark and commemorate the ending of a life and provides hope for survivors as they look to the future.
One of the foremost ways in which a funeral service benefits us is that it helps mourners recognize that their loss is real. A body may be displayed, a coffin or urn shown, or words read to solidify for everyone in attendance what has happened. Death, loss, feelings of sorrow and grief.
The funeral is an act of acknowledgment, then, but also an act of redemption. Through a funeral, we can work to transcend the bleakness of our loss and make it into something positive or find closure. The funeral itself reminds us of the real, physical need to support one another, to band together during times of sadness. And as we celebrate the life of our lost loved one, we are inundated with happy memories of life lived together.
Ultimately, the memorial service is for the living - not for the departed. It gives us permission to feel deeply about our loss, and to give our loss a name, while also bidding us to look around at the good.