Waller Funeral Home staff, pictured left to right are: (seated) Trish Cousley, Insurance Office Manager; Patsy Waller, Co-owner; Beth Rosson, Funeral Home Manager and Director; (standing) Chris Mooney and Jerry Jenkins, Grounds and Cemetery Staff; Rocky Kennedy, Funeral Director; Don Waller; Co-owner; Bobby Phelps, Funeral Director; Bob Rosson, Funeral Home Manager and Director.

HOLIDAY MESSAGES

The picture of the Waller Funeral Home staff is included in this issue to make more personal our greeting to you as the holiday season approaches. May this season bring you joy and peace within the warmth of family and friends.

For those who are still coping with the grief of a loved one, we continue to feel special concern. May the hope and peace of the season bring you comfort. A pamphlet, After the Loss... Coping with the Holidays, and a related article will be sent to those families we have served since last Christmas. If you know of someone else you think might benefit from these, please let us know.

Inspirational and dashboard calendars are available at the funeral home as an expression of our appreciation and friendship to you.

Our wish for each of you is God’s presence m your heart and life in these days. Truly, God is good and blesses us by His presence at all times.

Waller Funeral Home Staff

DIVERSITY

Diversity makes our lives interesting. In our part of the country, the seasons change dramatically and beautifully and cause us to vary our activities accordingly. Other variety is provided by the diverse terrain. Without leaving our own state, we can see the uniqueness of the Gulf Coast, the mighty Mississippi River and the rich black delta it provides, the red hill country which rises almost to a low mountain range in the northeastern part of the state, and the flatness of the prairie.

Each area has its own natural trees, plants, weather conditions, and personality. All these elements affect our lifestyles. People within our own state have varying customs and have dissimilar patterns of word usage and speech. Religious practices and customs vary as well.

Traditions and customs relating to funeral services are often different from one community to another and even within each community. Choices are available and allow for our individual preferences and needs. Families should be encouraged to move carefully in making plans for honoring and memorializing one they loved. Circumstances of the death and the age and health of survivors enter into these decisions.

The weather also is a strong factor in planning and adapting funeral services. Good weather conditions seem to offer some relief in the grieving process. A delay for ice and snow places additional strain upon the family. More commonly, rain affects plans and spirits.

One rainy day comes quickly to mind. We had three funerals. The rain had come in torrents the night before and continued into the day. We had an inside labor force and an outside one. The families realized and accepted that they could not go to the cemetery. Attendance at the services was limited. Don and others worked in rain suits. They waited in the drive-through to receive each casket and proceeded immediately to the burial place. Although we had tents at the gravesites, the staff was distressed that the flowers were beaten by sheets of rain.

During this past excessively hot and dry summer, some families made the decision to have the committal service in the chapel rather than in the cemetery. The health of older persons was a major concern in these decisions.

Our long summer days allow more daylight hours for choosing the time for the funeral. If the times are arranged, two services can be held in one afternoon.

The closing of the day seems appropriate for a service. I often recall the cemetery committal service of my dear friend Elizabeth Faust Briscoe at the Clear Creek Cemetery. The sun was beginning to drop behind the trees in the woods adjoining the cemetery. The birds seemed to be in a late afternoon concert especially for Elizabeth. It was a beautiful setting.

The committal service is a significant part of the funeral. It provides a time and feeling of finality and goodbye which is a part of the grief process. Although families are free to make plans of their own choosing, I do hope that not going to the cemetery will never become the custom and practice.

The committal service is an important part of closure. Perhaps reference to closure has been overused by me and others, especially since, as I have come to accept, there is never complete closure. But each step in the process of memorializing the one who has died helps with the acceptance that that one is gone forever from us here on this earth. Whatever helps us accept that reality will be etched always in our minds. Especially with sudden, unexpected death is closure slow and difficult.
Grief seems certainly to be one of our most intimately personal emotions and our individual reactions cause each of us to cope in our own way. Often a number of people are involved in making decisions relative to the funeral service. During and after the funeral service each of these will work through their grief in their own way. Needs will be answered by different means.

At the Funeral Home, we encourage families to make plans which are meaningful and comfortable to them. While arrangements vary from family to family, our goals to facilitate planning and to assist with services which are meaningful and respectful do not change.

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.

— Mother Teresa

SINCERELY,
Patsy