Monthly Archives: September 2022

funeral home in Oakland, CA

Wake Catering

How do you choose the right type of food service for your loved one’s wake after a service at a funeral home in Oakland, CA? After all, what you serve and how you serve it have a big impact on your guest’s enjoyment, making food a big pressure point in any wake after a funeral service. How do you choose the right food?

Start by deciding how you want the food to be served. The most common options are plated, buffet, food stations, cocktail, and family style. The most traditional wake food style, plated dinners are when the guests are served individual, pre-portioned plates for each course. Generally, guests select their preferred main course dish from a list of options in advance the wake. There are many good things about plated dinners, such as that they limit food waste, and they have a fancier feel. However, plated dinners can cost more than other styles as they take more staff to make and serve. They also take more planning time as you have to carefully place each guest to make sure they get the food they ordered.

Buffets are usually popular for wakes with large numbers of guests or those that want to offer lots of different food options. Buffets are great as they cater to many different tastes and are generally cost effective. However, buffet lines can get very long, slowing down the evening. There are also food stations. Similar to buffets, food stations are placed all around the reception hall with different sections at each one. You can have a pasta, raw bar, carving, or dessert stations, or any other kind you can think of. People tend to enjoy the ability to mingle and select their own food, and the number of stations keep lines short. However, stations require a large space and lots of staff.

What about family style? Family style is a sit-down dinner in which waiters bring large portions of food to the table and guests serve themselves like they would at home. This allows people to select the food they want and the quantity they want, and also makes the dinner feel more social and less formal. However, you do need large tables to accommodate big serving platters, and family style can be expensive. You could also try cocktail style. Instead of a sit-down meal, you can have small, passed hot and cold items served on platters by waiters. This lends itself to small venues and more intimate wakes, but guests might be disappointed if they were expecting a big meal. Usually served on long tables, buffets offer up many food options for guests to self-select, from meat and fish to pastas, salads, and other sides.

funeral home in Oakland, CA

As an Oakland, CA funeral home, we have years of planning experience at your disposal and are honored to do whatever we can to help you. Call or visit us today to learn more about what we can do for you in your time of loss or preplanning.

cremation service in Oakland, CA

Grief Counseling After Cremation Services

Grief counseling is a specific form of therapy that helps you cope with the effects of a major loss after a cremation service in Oakland, CA. There are many different ways you can get help and support when you’re grieving after a loss and cremation service in Oakland, CA, grief counseling is just one of them. Though it comes in many different forms, it commonly involves taking through your feelings about and reactions to the loss of a loved one or any other grief-inducing event such as divorce, infertility, or an adoption falling through.

The main goal of grief counseling is to give you tools to help you deal with the emotional, spiritual, physical, and social effects of grief. The counselor will help you process what has happened, identify what you are experiencing, and provide strategies that help you cope in the healthiest way possible. As there are different kinds of grief counseling, there are different kinds of grief counselors including licensed or certified grief counselors. Licensed or certified grief counselors are mental health professionals who focus on treating individuals and families suffering from loss, whether that means a death or a divorce, loss of a job, or even the loss of a pet. Because grief comes in many different forms for many different people, there are lots of different kinds of grief counselors. Some work in group settings, others focus on private sessions. Some just listen, others give advice and actionable tools to help you move through the grieving process.

There is also pastoral counseling and support groups. Many people find comfort through their faith, making pastoral counseling an excellent choice for getting through grief. This type of counseling helps back up your faith and gives you guidance and support in grief through religious texts and concepts. Many people feel alone after the loss of a loved one. Support groups are excellent for making you feel less alone or if you’re uncomfortable talking to a professional in a one-on-one setting. In support groups, each member works in tandem with the others and gives instant validation from being around others who can understand on some level. Funeral homes, churches, hospitals, and community centers all usually offer support groups or recommendations.

You can also get grief counseling from professional therapists. “Therapist” refers to psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors. Though they have different titles, each of these professionals are educated and certified in helping with mental and emotional problems. However, their different titles do indicate different specialties. Psychiatrists can diagnose mental health conditions and prescribe medicine, while psychologists are trained in talk therapy, the study of behavior, and psychological testing and analysis and therefore cannot prescribe medicine. Counselors are trained to help individuals address specific problems involving behavior and mental and emotional well-being. You can find any of these professional therapists in locations such as mental health clinics, community centers, hospitals, online practices, military facilities, and schools.

cremation service in Oakland, CA

We are here to help if you have more questions on grief counseling or on Orange Park, FL cremation services. Call or visit us today to learn more about what we can do for you.

funeral homes in Oakland, CA

What Is Funeral Crowning?

Many cultures choose to view services at funeral homes in Oakland, CA as chance to celebrate the life of their lost loved one through unique traditions rather than viewing them as sad events in which they mourn the death of their loved one. One such happy, celebrating tradition is the crowning ceremony.

A crowning ceremony is a traditional part of an African American or Black Canadian homegoing ceremony in which, before the final viewing and benediction, a crown is presented by a family member or officiant and then placed on the deceased’s head inside the coffin. The crown used in a crowning ceremony is just what you’d imagine, a jeweled, bedazzled, or otherwise decorated ornament that is sometimes ordered special by the family or borrowed from the funeral home for the service.

The crown is often presented to a piece of music, sung along by the gathering or by a special choir, and is placed on the head of the deceased, proving they were a king or queen both in life and in death. Then the service continues according to the funeral program. The funeral crown holds specific significance thanks to symbolism in the Bible. Revelation 2:10 reads, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” Though the “crown of life’ referenced in this passage is not a literal crown, it does represent the gift of eternal life for those who believe in God.

The crowning ceremony is derived from this passage and serves to symbolize this promise of eternal life through a physical crown. Though the crowning ceremony is a modern tradition, it does have roots in several ancient traditions from many different parts of the world. Throughout history there have been many cultural practices surrounding death that depict an idea of what happens in the afterlife, such as Egypt and Poland. Ancient Egyptians decorated their dead and the tombs with clothing, jewels, and everyday items as they believed the dead would take whatever they wore and whatever was buried with them into the afterlife. In the 1500s, Polish kings were buried with the Funeral Crown, known in Latin as Corona Funebris, until the next king died, and the crown was passed to him. The living kings wore different crowns.

funeral homes in Oakland, CA

The most recent iteration of the crowning ceremony popped up very recently, as demonstrated in the viral video of “coffin dancers” carrying a casket in rhythmic step to an upbeat and celebratory song. While some people thought the video was disrespectful of the dead, it is, in actuality, just a different way of honoring the deceased than many Americans are used to. It’s simply a unique form of celebration for the dead, to stay joyful and positive for who they were in life.

We are here to help if you want to celebrate your lost loved one with a crowning ceremony or a more traditional service. Call or visit us today to learn more about our Oakland, CA funeral home services.

cremation service in Oakland, CA

What Does Grief Look Like After Cremation Services?

Grief can present itself in a variety of ways, from physical to emotional symptoms. What does “normal” grief look like after the loss of a loved one and a cremation service in Oakland, CA? How can you tell if what you are feeling is “normal” grief? When should you seek help? How long will you feel like this?

Grief often looks different in different people, meaning no two people will grieve exactly the same. There are many different physical signs of grief. Though grief isn’t a physical illness, it can often feel like one. Some people report that their hearts actually ache, while others are exhausted but can’t sleep or hungry but can’t eat.

And yet others still face a physical grief symptom called “broken heart syndrome,” which is a diagnosable disease with the same symptoms as a heart attack. Grief can also worsen existing health problems, causing increased blood pressure, heart palpitations, increased risk of blood clots, headaches, nausea, and even an increased number of colds or infections. While everyone will grieve at one time or another, grief can hit some people worse than others and necessitate professional intervention.

Feelings of hopelessness and despair are normal, but they shouldn’t be debilitating for long periods of time. Here are some signs you might benefit from counseling or sessions with a doctor, like if you’re no longer looking after your personal hygiene, are experiencing hallucinations, whether of your loved one or otherwise, or are feeling intense feelings of guilt. You should also see a doctor if you’re not able to complete your day-to-day activities, whether that means job, childcare, or school or have thoughts of suicide, the inability to sleep or sleep through the night, are not eating enough or properly, or are binge eating. There are also many emotional symptoms of grief. Grief is a serious stressor, linking physical and emotional symptoms and sparking the same nervous system response as a physical threat. Some research has shown that emotional pain, like the pain of a loss, can even trigger the same zones of the brain as physical pain. This is why you might supper emotional grief symptoms like fear, guilt, emptiness, sadness, anger, shame, shock, and depression.

cremation service in Oakland, CA

Remember, every grief journey is different. You might experience some, all, or even none of the symptoms as you mourn the loss of your loved one. These differences also apply to timeline. Some people might grieve for weeks and other people for years. There is no set timeline for dealing with a loss, so take all the time to need to mourn your loved one while still remembering to take care of yourself, too. Even if you’re not experiencing these specific grief symptoms, you might still benefit from counseling or a grief support group. There is no shame in getting help. After all, humans are social animals and therefore do best when we mourn, heal, and move on in a community.

We are here to help if you want more information on grief or Oakland, CA cremation services. We are honored to do whatever we can for you in your time of loss or preplanning, so call or visit us today.