 We received a call from a woman in another state who indicated that she had buried her husband in haste, and in the process, she had great dissatisfaction with the funeral home.
Within a year after his burial, her husband’s body was dug up and relocated to a different cemetery. Enjoying an interesting story as well as anyone, I asked about the reason for this uncommon procedure.
The woman explained that her husband had been buried in a Catholic cemetery. Her family has one close relative who is divorced without heirs. Being divorced, the relative is unable to be buried in the Catholic cemetery.
The caller did not want her family member to be buried alone, so the husband’s body was removed from the Catholic cemetery and relocated to a site that will allow the burial of the other beloved family member.
During the funeral, it was observed that the casket was damaged, indicating that both her husband’s body and the casket had been dropped. Everyone is entitled to expect that their loved one’s remains will be handled professionally, and the woman was greatly distressed by the very poor service received by the funeral home. She refused to pay for the casket.
Upon digging up the grave, the woman learned that the funeral home had installed a vault without a matching top and base. This was disturbing by itself and was another indication of unprofessional conduct by the funeral home.
The relocation cost more than one thousand dollars, and the transfer unnecessarily caused additional suffering for the grieving family.
This story suggests a couple of points that need to be remembered.
•Preneed planning reduces family stress.
•Poor decisions are often made during the crisis of death; e.g. in this case, selecting an inferior funeral provider with dubious service practices.
•The failure to think through the family plan for burial and memorialization resulted in unsatisfactory services and burial in a cemetery that did not fulfill comprehensive family plans, necessitating two undesirable choices: Separation of loved ones with burial in separate cemeteries, or disinterment.
Planning for the inevitable is an important part of loving others. ‘Failure to plan is planning to fail,’ and the rule applies to both life and death decisions. Make your plans now; after all, it is the right thing to do!
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