Starbuck Funeral Home

Funerals fill an important role for those mourning the loss of a loved one. By providing surviving family and friends with an atmosphere of care and support in which to share thoughts and feelings about death, funerals are the first step in the healing process. It is the traditional way to recognize the finality of death. Funerals are recognized rituals for the living to show their respect for the dead and to help survivors begin the grieving process. You can have a full funeral service even for those choosing cremation.

Pick up the deceased and transport the body to the funeral home (anytime day or night); Notify proper authorities, family and/or relatives; Arrange and prepare death certificates; Provide certified copies of death certificates for insurance and benefit processing; Work with the insurance agent, Social Security or Veterans Administration to ensure that necessary paperwork is filed for receipt of benefits; Prepare and submit obituary to the newspapers of your choice; Bathe and embalm the deceased body, if necessary; Prepare the body for viewing including dressing and cosmetizing; Assist the family with funeral arrangements and purchase of casket, urn, burial vault and cemetery plot; Schedule the opening and closing of the grave with cemetery personnel, if a burial is to be performed; Coordinate with clergy if a funeral or memorial service is to be held; Arrange a police escort and transportation to the funeral and/or cemetery for the family; Order funeral sprays and other flower arrangements as the family wishes; Provide Aftercare, or grief assistance, to the bereaved.

The funeral home will help coordinate arrangements with the cemetery. Bring the following information to complete the State vital statistic requirements: Birth Date, Birthplace, Father's Name, Mother's Name, Social Security Number, Veteran's Discharge or Claim Number, Education, Marital Status. Contact your clergy. Decide on time and place of funeral or memorial service. The funeral home will assist you in determining the number of copies of the death certificates you will be needing and can order them for you. Make a list of immediate family, close friends and employer or business colleagues. Notify each by phone. Decide on appropriate memorial to which gifts may be made. Gather obituary information and the funeral home will normally write article and submit to newspapers. Arrange for members of family or close friends to take turns answering door or phone.

If you request immediate assistance, yes. If the family wishes to spend a short time with the deceased to say good-bye, that's perfectly acceptable. Your funeral director will come when your time is right.

Burial in a casket is the most common method of disposing of remains in the United States, although entombment also occurs. Cremation is increasingly selected because it can be less expensive and allows for the memorial service to be held at a more convenient time in the future when relatives and friends can come together. A funeral service followed by cremation need not be any different from a funeral service followed by a burial. Usually, cremated remains are placed in urn before being committed to a final resting place. The urn may be buried, placed in an indoor or outdoor mausoleum or columbarium, or interred in a special urn garden that many cemeteries provide for cremated remains.

Viewing is a part of many cultural and ethnic traditions. Many grief specialists believe that viewing aids the grief process by helping the bereaved recognize the reality of death. Viewing is encouraged for children, as long as the process is explained and the activity is voluntary.

Embalming sanitizes and preserves the body. Embalming makes it possible to lengthen the time between death and the final disposition, allowing family members time to arrange and participate in the type of service most comforting to them.

The Federal Trade Commission says, Except in certain special cases, embalming is not required by law. Embalming may be necessary, however, if you select certain funeral arrangements, such as a funeral with viewing. If you do not want embalming, you usually have the right to choose an arrangement that does not require you to pay for it, such as direct cremation or immediate burial.

When compared to other major life events like births and weddings, funerals are not expensive. A wedding costs at least three times as much; but because it is a happy event, wedding costs are rarely criticized. A funeral home is a 24-hour, labor-intensive business, with extensive facilities (viewing rooms, chapels, limousines, hearses, etc.), these expenses must be factored into the cost of a funeral. Additionally, the cost of a funeral includes not only merchandise, like caskets, but the services of a funeral director in making arrangements; filing appropriate forms; dealing with doctors, ministers, florists, newspapers and others; and seeing to all the necessary details.

It really depends entirely on how you wish to commemorate a life. One of the advantages of cremation is that it provides you with increased flexibility when you make your funeral and cemetery arrangements. You might, for example, choose to have a funeral service before the cremation; a memorial service at a later time.

Starbuck Funeral Home offers funeral homes, and is a funeral home. See the full breakdown and prices on this page.

Starbuck Funeral Home is located at 1022 N 2nd St, Abilene, TX. Use the “Get directions” link on this page for a map.