There is a scientific reason why food is called comforting. There is a psychological component to eating that makes us feel good. Food cravings occur because our body is lacking some food component in our diet and telling us to go and find it. It’s our body trying to restore homeostasis, or balance, to all its systems. For example, chocolate contains the chemical phenylethylamine (PEA), which is the exact same chemical our brain creates when we are feeling the emotion of romantic love.

A funeral reception is the opportunity for those who knew the deceased to gather together, pay their respects and support one another as they share happy memories of the deceased. Having a funeral reception catered has many benefits:

• Relieves stress. Hiring a caterer for the funeral memorial service takes one more thing off the grieving family’s plate (pun intended). They prepare the funeral food, serve the food, and clean up after the food, which allows the family to focus on the guests in attendance, many of whom they probably haven’t seen in a while.
• Advice on funeral food choices and budget planning. A funeral service caterer likely has served food at many funerals and can advise you as to what’s best. In the end, the funeral food you choose to serve at the memorial service is a personal choice. Don’t feel pressure to go all out and keep it simple; finger foods is fine.
• Provides funeral food for all those who may be in attendance. Caterers are able to prepare healthy, great-tasting foods for all those in attendance, including children and those with special diets, such as vegetarians. Also, caterers can prepare funeral food for religious needs as well. And don’t forget the drinks. Water, coffee, tea, and lemonade are universally beloved by all.

Dolan Funeral Home, which serves the Chelmsford, MA, area, including communities such as Lowell, Westford, and Hudson, NH, works with preferred caterers to suit your funeral buffet catering needs. Their catering menu for memorial service is linked on our website. However, you may work with any caterer of your choice, or do-it-yourself. Dolan’s Funeral Home is committed to making the celebration of life for loved ones as easy as possible by helping with your catering needs. We’ll be more than happy to help you arrange a caterer or choose funeral food options. Contact us today about all of our funeral services!

THE HISTORY OF FUNERAL FOOD

Food during funerals has a long and rich history. Funeral feasts were part of both ancient Egyptian and Roman funeral traditions. Archaeologists recently discovered evidence of what they believe to be the world’s oldest funeral feast, which dates back 12,000 years ago.

The living still have to eat even when a loved one’s death can make their world stop. Having food and giving the gift of food is a fundamental connection humans share. It’s a way to express sympathy for the person making the meal, especially in today’s busy world where a lot of us don’t even make our own home-cooked meals anymore. For the receiver, it’s one less thing to worry about.

Food as a way of saying “I’m sorry for your loss” is common across cultures and religions and has been for thousands of years.

• In colonial America, especially amongst the German and British colonists, as people walked from the church to the grave they ate a molasses cookie or funeral biscuit and drank an alcoholic beverage of some type. This was a form of communion. These cookies were much like modern-day cookies in size and shape and featured a stamp of a cross, heart, death’s head, or cherub on their tops.
• In the Victorian Age in Britain, funeral biscuits became big business. Local bakeries would run advertisements, promising cookies in a hurry when a sudden death occurred. These cookies were often ornately wrapped with printed Bible verses. Like church holy cards, these cookie wrappings served as keepsakes to remember the dead. Death notices evolved out of these early cookie wrappings and began to be sent around to friends and families as notices and as comfort food.
• In the Hindu faith, baskets of fruit or vegetables are commonly given to families.
• Jambalaya is the food of choice at funerals in New Orleans.
• The Amish bring a raisin-filled funeral pie.
• In the American South, classic feel-good comfort foods like fried chicken and macaroni and cheese are common.
• In Sweden, Funeral Glogg is used to toast the departed.
• The Midwest is famous for classic funeral hot dishes and casseroles.
• Utah and Idaho have their signature dish: Funeral potatoes. Funeral potatoes are a popular dish for all kinds of events, but they got their start as a common side dish at Mormon after-funeral dinners.

WHAT FOODS TO BRING TO A GRIEVING FAMILY

• Classics. Meat and potatoes, spaghetti and meatballs, macaroni and cheese, and pizza are all foods most people like. You’ll want to be aware of any dietary restrictions of the grieving family and keep the food mildly-flavored to satisfy all paletes.
• Make it disposable. Grieving families don’t have the time or energy to do dishes. Include paper plates and cups and plastic silverware to make clean up easy.
• Drop off commonly-used groceries. If you don’t want to cook, can’t cook, or don’t have the time to cook, dropping off necessary groceries is another great way to help the grieving. Milk, eggs, bread, and chocolate are great food choices to consider.
  Make it microwaveable. Easy to reheat food will be most appreciated by the grieving family, so the family can eat when they are hungry.

There are many reasons to purchase a burial plot in a cemetery ahead of time.

• Less expensive. When you purchase a burial plot in advance, you’ll most likely save money. Your family won’t be rushed into a decision after your death, and you can take your time shopping around for options. Furthermore, a grieving family is the perfect candidate for others to take advantage of — and owners of cemeteries know this. Rushing a decision can result in your family spending thousands of dollars more than they should.
• You choose. When you choose where you want to be buried for eternity, you’re in control. If you want to be under a big shady tree or near a stream, you get to pick.
• Ensuring you’re next to loved ones. Buying multiple cemetery plots is usually cheaper as you usually get a deal. Plus, you ensure you’re buried next to loved ones when you buy their plot as well or the plot next to someone who has already passed.
• As an investment. The value of land only continues to go up. Purchasing your cemetery plot for use in the future not only saves you money, but the value of the plot itself goes up, enabling you to sell it at a potential profit if need be.
• Spread the cost out. A burial plot can be a significant cost of the burial itself, leaving the potential cost to family members upon your death. Buying a cemetery plot ahead of time allows you to pay for it ahead of time, taking one less worry off everyone’s plates.

THE PROCESS OF PURCHASING A BURIAL PLOT

Decide which cemetery. Are you seeking a religious cemetery or a secular one? Each cemetery and township has different rules and regulations for burial. Make sure you find out the details (such as what kind of monument you can have) before purchasing your plot. Furthermore, some cemeteries are cheaper than others (inside the city versus on the outskirts for example), so take your time and shop around to find which cemetery is right for you.
Buying the burial plot. When you purchase the burial plot or a crypt if you are choosing a mausoleum as your final resting place from the cemetery, you are not buying the actual piece of land. You are only purchasing the right to be buried on that land. This is called interment rights. Once you own the interment rights, you can choose to use them for yourself or gift them to someone else. Most cemeteries sell burial plots with the right of first refusal. This means that if you want to sell your burial plot because, for instance, you want to be buried somewhere else, you must offer it back to the cemetery first before a third-party. However, the cemetery can sell burial plots surrounding yours without first informing you. A lot of cemeteries will, however, inform you of a pending sale in case you were interested as a courtesy, recognizing the fact that burial plots can be expensive.
Buying other services. Along with buying your burial plot, some services may or may not be included in the agreement. These include: endowment care or perpetual care, which is a government-required fund that the cemetery fund for cemetery care and maintenance costs, the process of burial itself (the digging and filling of the grave), installing your headstone, and annual maintenance fees, which may be required.
Payment. Some cemeteries offer payment options, even up to five years. Be sure to inquire if there are any financing fees for this option. Or you can pay in full.
Find out exit options. Plans can change at a moment’s notice. If you decide in the future you don’t need this plot, make sure to find out any refund policies or possibilities to transfer the plot to another owner or even another cemetery all together.

Dolan Funeral Home in Chelmsford, MA, cares about our customers. We want to make sure you and your loved ones are well taken care of in a time of grief. Having as much done up-front before your death can only only save thousands of dollars, but will more importantly save your loved ones the stress and hassle of dealing with details while grieving your death. We can’t emphasize enough how important pre-planning your funeral can be.

Dolan Funeral Home offers many services for all of your funeral home needs. We offer caskets, urns, coffins, and prayer books. We offer catering service during your memorial service or celebration of life. We also offer cremation services as well as transportation services to and from the funeral home. Contact us today for all of your funeral needs!

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Bringing food to those who’ve lost a loved one has been a long standing tradition. In times of grief, one is often too upset to cook, so others have brought food to express their sympathies and to help the grieving through their hard times. Continuing with tradition, Dolan Funeral Home of Chelmsford, MA, allows a caterer of your choice to serve food and beverages during a memorial service or reception. In this blog post, we’ll explore the history of food at funerals and why providing food during a loved ones celebration of life goes a long way in healing. Contact us today.

Whether you’re planning a traditional burial or are planning on being cremated, there are a variety of options for you in cemetery plots.

1. Single plots. This is a burial plot in a cemetery for one person.
2. Companion plots. These burial plots are ideal for couples. Typically sold together, companion plots are two burial plots sold side-by-side, or as one plot with the caskets buried on top of each other (known as double depth plots). In terms of cost, double plots often offer more economical benefits because these types only require one outer burial container as opposed to two.
3. Family plots. Family plots are multiple plots purchased together for use by an extended family. These can be in a row or in any configuration that makes sense. Often marked by a single headstone engraved with the family name with small headstones or footstones marking the individuals in the family, family plots are the most affordable type of cemetery plots.
4. Cremation plots. These plots are designed for cremated remains. Taking up considerably less space, cremation plots allow for multiple urns in one plot. Some cemeteries have an urn garden, which is a designated space for urns. Some of these urn gardens are elaborate affairs, with the option of having your urn incorporated into rocks, benches, or fountains.

Generally speaking, the more plots you buy, the more economical the cost. Companion plots and family plots are the most popular as most people want to have their remains resting eternally next to loved ones. Cremation plots are less expensive as well due to the less space an urn takes up.

Dolan Funeral Home in Chelmsford, MA, is passionate about helping grieving loved ones through the funeral planning process. Buying a funeral plot ahead of time has many advantages, and Dolan Funeral Home can help. Contact us today for all of your funeral home needs!

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Death is an unpleasant talking point for many. We don’t want to think about what happens to us after death. Yet one of the best things you can do for those whom you leave behind is preplan. From penning your will, expressing your final wishes, and picking out a tombstone, the tasks to do before you die can seem overwhelming.

Dolan Funeral Home in Chelmsford, MA, and serving all of the surrounding townships, including Lowell and Southern New Hampshire, Tyngsboro, Westford, Dunstable, Dracut, Lowell, MA, and Hudson, NH, offers pre-arrangement services to help you with all the tasks as you approach the end of life process. We are here to help answer questions you may have, offer guidance on service arrangements and casket selection as well as cemetery selection. In this blog post, Dolan Funeral Home will offer guidance on how to purchase a cemetery plot.

Dolan Funeral Home in Chelmsford, MA, serves the great Lowell areas, including the communities of Tewksbury and Dracut. In the state of Massachusetts, we are required to transport your loved one from his or her place of passing to our funeral home in a hearse that is registered. Law dictates that we also use a hearse to transport your loved one to his or her final resting place.

Dolan Funeral Home is fortunate to have use of a 1927 Velie Henney hearse as part of our fleet. The National Museum of Funeral History has many antique hearses in their collection, making it possible to see the history up close and personal. America continues to honor and remember our dead, and hearses have become integral to the funeral process.

A Chelmsford funeral home, Dolan Funeral Home is a full-service funeral home for all of your funeral arrangement needs. We offer embalming, cremating, traditional burial, and celebration of life ceremonies. We work with amazing caterers in the Lowell area to complete your visitation, funeral service, and celebration of life ceremony. We have a complete showroom of caskets and urns for you to choose from as well as pre-arrangement services and aftercare to serve you throughout the entire burial process. From helping you choose the best cemetery to aiding you in the legal aspects of death, Dolan Funeral Home will answer all of the questions you may have. We’ll work with you if your loved one has died far from home or if your loved one has requested his or her body be donated to medical science.

Dolan Funeral Home understands the difficulty funerals can be when you lose a loved one. Our mission is to make the funeral planning process as seamless as possible so you can concentrate on more important things, such as being with family. We’re here to help. If you’re in the greater Lowell and Southern New Hampshire regions, including Tewksbury and Dracut areas, contact Dolan Funeral Home today for all your funeral service needs!

Dolan Funeral Home in Chelmsford, MA, is a leader in providing funeral home services in the Chelmsford area. We proudly serve the communities of Lowell and Southern New Hampshire, including Chelmsford, N. Chelmsford, Tyngsboro, Westford, Dunstable, Dracut, Lowell, MA, and Hudson, NH with funeral, burial, and cremation needs. Our mission is to not only help you with all of your funeral needs, but also to help you with your needs before and after the funeral of a loved one. We offer pre-planning services as well as aftercare services to help you navigate the ins and outs a death in the family can entail. In this blog post, we’ll discuss the different types of cemetery plots.

The hearse is synonymous with funerals. Usually black in color, a hearse is a long car specifically designed to carry a coffin and is used almost exclusively for such a purpose. But did you know a hearse did not always refer to a car that transported the dead? So how did the hearse come about? A Chelmsford funeral home, Dolan Funeral Home, offers the best funeral home services in the greater Lowell area in Massachusetts. In this blog post, we’ll review the incredible history of the hearse. Contact us today!

ORIGIN OF THE WORD HEARSE

Interestingly, when the word hearse is mentioned, an image of a long, black car carrying a coffin pops up. However, hearse didn’t always refer to a car. In fact, hearse referred to a castrum doloris, which is a frame that held candles and decorations over the coffin during a funeral. Like half the words in the English language, the word (originally spelled herse) comes to us from the Latin word “hirpicem,” which means a large rake. The castrum doloris were triangular in shape and had spikes for the candles, thus resembling a rake — hence the name. Then hearse meant the structure around a coffin until finally settling on a vehicle used during a funeral procession around the mid 17th century.

ORIGIN OF CARRYING THE DEAD

In ancient times, when people died, someone had to carry the body to its final resting place. Warriors would place dead kin on shields and haul them off the battlefield. For thousands of years, biers were used which were simple wooden structures resembling stretchers that both served as the place loved one rested before burial and the transport method when it was time to transport to the cemetery. Native Americans constructed travois, or wooden frame structures to first carry and then use a horse to pull the dead to the burial ground. What began as a purely utilitarian need (transport a heavy body) became an elaborate ritual and part of the grieving and mourning process when a loved one dies.

ORIGIN OF THE MODERN HEARSE

A hearse (or funeral coaches in some countries and a more common usage amongst those in the funeral industry) began as a hand-drawn cart with a built-in frame to prevent the coffin from slipping. As the hearses became more decorated and elaborate, horses were recruited to draw the coach in the early 1600s. Hearse trolleys came about in the late 1800s, which allowed bodies to be transported by rail. This continued until the invention of the automobile, with the first electric motorized hearses used in the United States in the early 1900s. In 1909, the first hearse was built using a gas-powered engine. These motorized hearses were slow to catch on due to the cost. However, as the price of cars went down, the popularity of hearses increased due to the easier upkeep than a horse and the fact that a car is faster than a horse.

From the 1920s to the middle part of the 1900s, funeral coaches served as both ambulance and hearse in small towns, which must have sent an interesting and possibly frightening message if you called an ambulance and a hearse showed up. These vehicles were known as combination coaches.

In 1938, Sayers and Scovill introduced the landau style of hearse. Harkening back to the Victorian era, a Landau was a horse-drawn, four-wheeled enclosed carriage with a removable front cover and a back cover that could be raised and lowered. Adapted to the motorized vehicle, the look created a semi-convertible where the rear quarter of the car could be opened up by folding the cover at the landau joints. The funeral industry embraced the look and the leather-backed hearse with its faux landau bar became popular. However, in the 1970, new regulations for ambulances were passed and now it’s very rare for an ambulance to be a hearse as well.

HOW ARE HEARSES MADE?

The form of a hearse has largely remained unchanged with a longer back to slide the coffin in. It’s interesting to note that no hearses are mass-produced; instead, hearses are custom made using luxury car chassis, such as a Cadillac, Lincoln, or Buick. The luxury car is essentially cut in half and then put back together on a longer chassis, using fiberglass to merge the two parts together.

In the back of this newly-created hearse, a long platform on rollers is placed so the coffin can be rolled in and out. Pin plates hold the casket in place so it doesn’t slide around during transport. Drapes are placed in the windows along the length of the coach. The S-shaped landau bars are still popular on many hearses today, having become almost a signature look. A brand new hearse today costs around $100,000.

In Europe, especially the United Kingdom, the limousine hearse style is the most popular hearse form. These are longer and characterized by narrow pillars and more glass windows, which are usually left unobscured.

Like other cars, hearses are collected as well and customized. You may see a motorcycle hearse or even a party wagon at your favorite sporting event, turned into an amazing tailgate vehicle. You may see a hearse customized and decked out with custom wheels, rims, and shiny paint jobs. The possibilities for a hearse are limited only by imagination.

When a loved one dies, you may be disconsolate, in shock, and devastated — all rolled into one. At Dolan Funeral Home in Chelmsford, MA, we understand the impact a death in the family can have. We are here to help with all your funeral home needs, from start to finish, so you can focus on being with your family and the grieving process. Contact us today!

THE 5 STAGES OF GRIEF

These five stages of grief were first proposed by Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in her 1969 book On Death and Dying. These stages are universal and affect everyone no matter what culture you’re from: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and finally acceptance. These will be different for everyone, but overall you may experience a period in all these stages. Know that this is a normal part of the healing and grieving process.

1. Denial. Immediately upon hearing of a death, especially an unexpected death, denial happens. We block out the knowledge and pretend it didn’t happen. When the death finally sinks in, we lose ourselves in the world and our place in the world. Life loses some of its meaning as we struggle to find our place without that person in it. We may enter a period of shock where numbness takes over and anything that happens to us — good or bad — has no meaning. You question everything while in this denial period. Furthermore, you are at your most vulnerable in this stage to being taken advantage of, especially from scammers.
2. Anger. There is no shame at being mad at what has occurred, especially if the death of your loved one was an accident. Anger is a natural human emotion that can ground you in this time in your life. You may be angry at others, the one who caused the death, doctors, or at God or any other deity you may worship. You may even blame the loved one who died because you resent him or her for leaving you alone in this world. Then you’ll feel guilty over feeling such a thing. Anger is a symptom of the pain you feel, which will lead to grief. The angrier you are at the death of a loved one, the more intense your love for them. Don’t try to suppress it, but do try to find a healthy outlet for it rather than blowing up at Aunt Martha who showed up in a pink dress at the funeral. Exercise, particularly one that involves a punching bag, is cathartic.
3. Bargaining. “If only…” or “what if…” marks this third stage of grief. A desire to go back in time and change things — change events that may have led to a tragic death, change our last words to our loved one, and change the death itself — becomes prominent. You start to believe you may have contributed to the death, and start blaming yourself. You live in the past in this phase, oblivious to what is happening around you and virtually incapable of planning for the future. It’s one day at a time. You may even progress to negotiating with the pain that you feel, wishing for it to end.
4. Depression. Completely normal and a phase of grief almost everyone experiences, feeling sad, questioning the meaning of life, and wondering how you will move forward are normal responses. Life can hold no meaning and feel empty, especially if the space your loved one used to occupy. Activities you used to do together and the places you used to go together can seem barren and even odious to you now. Note, there is nothing wrong with you, and most of the time you do not have clinical depression. This is a necessary part of healing even though it may feel like your life has ended. Taking it one day at a time is all you can do in this stage and knowing somewhere in the back of your mind that this stage will pass with time.
5. Acceptance. Realizing that life without your loved one is your new reality is the hallmark of this last stage of grief. This in no way makes the death of your loved one okay. In fact, you may never feel okay about the loss. You realize that you have to go on living, and it’s learning how to live without your loved one. This will take time as well, and we shouldn’t feel guilty about this. You won’t “bounce back”, and you’ll still have rough days, like for instance when you have to have someone else do household tasks that your loved one normally did. It’s okay. Don’t fight the process and allow yourself to feel whatever it is that you feel. Gradually, with time, you’ll begin to live again. Try to do this without feeling guilty that you are still alive and your loved one is not. Instead, know in your heart that your loved one would want you to move on, to enjoy a cup of coffee with friends, a vacation at the beach, and a ride in a hot air balloon.

It’s important to remember that these are general guidelines to the stages of the grieving process. Everyone grieves differently and you may jump in and out of stages repeatedly or even skip a phase altogether, and that is okay. Everyone copes with grief differently as well. You may find yourself sobbing uncontrollably or you may internalize your grief. Below are tips to cope with your grief:

• Seek out others. Even though all you may want to do is be by yourself, you’ll need others around you to offer words of wisdom, to comfort you, or to just be present while you cope. Let them make you a home cooked meal, buy you groceries, and pick up your kids from school. That’s why we have each other to lean on in times of need.
• Focus on self-care. Even though you may not feel like eating, you need to eat. Even though you may not feel like going to the gym, you need to exercise. Many turn to alcohol or drugs to numb the pain and to not feel the emotions of loss. This is not only detrimental to your health but also will only delay the natural healing process you need to go through.
• Remember the good times. Reminiscence often about your loved one. He or she will always live in your heart and your mind, and remind yourself often that you are a better person because of his or her presence in your life.
• Rely on your faith. When doubt creeps in, turn to faith. Know you will see your loved one again.
• Allow yourself to grieve. Grief is necessary to healing. Feel the emotions, and don’t deny them.
• Seek professional help if need be. Therapists are specially trained to help those going through the stages of grief and are trained to equip you with the tools to heal.

Dolan Funeral Home in Chelmsford, MA, serves the greater Lowell area, including Tewksbury and Dracut. As part of our aftercare program, we can assist you in finding help with your grief through appropriate support services. Our mission is to help you through the grieving process. Anytime you need support, please call us. Dolan Funeral Home cares. Contact us today!