Memorialization

The Importance of Memorialization

To remember, and be remembered, are natural human needs.  Memorialization has been a fundamental practice in nearly every society since the dawn of history.  A fixed memorial serves as a tribute to a life lived.  It also provides a focal point for loved ones to honor and remember an important person who has passed from their lives, and as a record for future generations.

Perhaps Cicero, the Roman orator, said it best, “For the life of the dead consists in the recollection cherished of them by the living.”   Although sometimes memories sneak out of our eyes and roll down our cheeks, as long as we remember them, our loved ones live on in our minds and hearts.

Psychologists say that remembrance practices, from funeral or memorial services to permanent memorialization, serve an important emotional function for survivors by helping to bring closure and allowing the healing process to begin.  Providing a permanent resting place for the deceased, whether it be traditional interment, mausoleum entombment or placement of cremated remains, is a dignified treatment of a loved one’s mortal remains, which fulfills the natural human desire for memorialization.

The Shrine of Remembrance offers a variety of magnificent ways to memorialize a loved one, both indoors and outside.  Some of the options we offer are:

• Indoor and Outdoor Crypts – for Entombment (1-4 spaces)
• Cremation Memorials
  • Niche Columbarium (1-4 spaces)
  • Pope St. John Paul II Memorial Columbarium (1-6 spaces)
  • Family Columbarium (1-6 spaces)
  • Veterans Honor Court Columbarium
• Garden Memorials and Benches
• Rose Garden Scattering

Any one of these options will serve as a meaningful memorial for you and your loved one for centuries.  It will be a dignified and enduring expression of a person’s life, marks the place of their remains, and ensures that generations far into the future will have a place to go to honor their deceased.  In circumstances where remains are elsewhere, the Shrine of Remembrance provides an opportunity for a memorial plaque to be placed on the grounds, so that survivors have a place to visit that will always be maintained and preserved. 

Make the planning of your memorial a shared decision.  It’s important that you include your loved ones in planning your family memorial for many reasons, which include: financial benefits, reduction of hardship on family members, and making sure you and your family are remembered properly.  Many people believe estate planning ends with the reading of a will.  It actually ends with your family’s personal memorial tribute.  Having your family’s sacred place chosen and identified with a memorial ensures that your heritage and legacy will forever live on.

Memorialization is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.  “To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die.” Thomas Campbell.  In contrast to the modern attitude, we at the Shrine of Remembrance believe that, “Everything Matters”.