Funerals provide the means to recognize death and its finality. The ceremonies, rituals and memorials help the living with the grief process and also serve as a means to show respect for the dead.

Funeral directors are trained care givers and administrators. They implement your choices with regard to the funeral and final disposition of the body. If needed, they make any necessary arrangements to transport the body. They also help complete all necessary paperwork.

Beyond the administrative role, they have experience in assisting the bereaved in coping with death. They are trained to answer questions about death and grief, and they also recommend sources of professional help if they recognize that a person is having a difficult time dealing with a death.

In most states, it is not a requirement that the funeral director bury the dead. But they are trained on the specific regulations for each state. Most people find it too overwhelming to be solely responsible for arranging the details and legal matters surrounding a death.

Embalming - the process of preserving a dead body by means of circulating preservative and antiseptic through the veins and arteries.

Embalming helps to sanitize and preserve the body, enhance the bodily appearance and retard the decomposition process.

In most states, embalming is not required unless death was caused by a reportable contagious disease, if the remains are to be transported from one state to another by common carrier, or if the final disposition in not completed within a predetermined number of hours.

According to the 1996 National Funeral Directors Association Survey of Funeral Home Operations, the average cost for an adult, full-service funeral was $4,782. This includes a professional service charge, transfer of remains, embalming, other preparation, use of viewing facilities, use of facilities for ceremony, hearse, limousine, and casket.

The casket included in this price is an 18-gauge steel casket with velvet interior. This may or may not be the most common casket chosen. This price does not include a vault, cemetery or monument charges.

Funeral costs have increased at the same rate as other consumer products. This table shows increases since 1975 for an adult, full-service funeral.

An area of land, which may or may not be owned by a funeral home, which has been set aside for the burial of the deceased.

Listing of Cemeteries

Remember that a funeral home is a 24 hour business. Most funeral homes have extensive facilities and are very labor intensive. Additionally, funeral homes provide a variety of services like filing appropriate forms, dealing with doctors, ministers, florists, newspapers, etc, and overseeing all of the details involved with a funeral.