When a person passes from this earth it is often thought that the family should step up and make the hard decisions such as place of burial, funeral or cremation; however many families don’t have the support system needed to make such big decisions and that is when an advocate is such a big help.

If it’s possible to have an advocate that was close to the family it is always nice but not necessary; because a good advocate will always try to involve as much of the family as possible in the planning. When the family gets involved in the planning of a funeral or memorial service it provides an opportunity to help the family grieve and get support from the community.

People have a variety of emotions and experiences with death and each situation needs to be handled differently. There are so many physical and emotional responses in the grief process, and although the family has been told by medical team that their patient- your family member is going to die quickly and you need to prepare; it may still come as a big shock when the day does indeed arrive.

A memorial service is where the body is not present and usually involves just immediate family. Many memorial services are planned by the family and does not involve a funeral director.

Your loved one might qualify for military honors if he/she served during a time of war and was honorably discharged form the military so make sure if this is the case you let your advocate know. The advocate should assist with getting a chaplain, bugler, honor guard and gun salute. A United States flag may also be draped over the top of the casket.

When someone is dying often other times people around that person seem to fall part, on way to make sure everything gets done is by assigning people different tasks. Assigning someone in charge of contacting people would help organize things right off the bat. Then give someone the job of following up with the requests of the dying.

Don’t forget along with services, if you should so choose would be to make the body available for viewing. This is an opportunity for family and friends to see their loved ones body before burial or cremation. Some find it very helpful to say goodbye this way.

It is not a fun task but someone needs to be in charge of asking the hard questions such as organ donation, cremation or funeral services, than someone needs to be in charge of the funeral services, gravesite, etc. If the patient is not coherent enough to make these decisions on their own then family should respectively consider what they think the wishes of the patient would be and proceed.

Unfortunately there are many families that either live too far apart or have family issues that can create problems during the planning of such events. Disagreements over decisions of whom should be in charge or what should be done can become unpleasant and very complicated. If the surviving spouse, if legally married at the time of death, he/she has the right to make relevant decisions. If disagreements still arise one can look in the yellow pages under mediators or family counseling and find a mediator, family therapist, or even clergy to be of assistance.

Advocates can do as little or as much as you ask and or of course what you pay them to do. If you have no wisdom in the matters of burying someone and the services that follow ask for some guidelines but only commit to that which you can afford because advocates services just like a funeral can be vast and expensive.