Final Arrangements

2016

The Manitoba Home Builders' Association is celebrating 75 years.

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JUNE 2016 ❖ 5 A R R A N G E M E N T S ❖ Estate probate and administration ❖ Wills and estate planning ❖ Spousal agreements ❖ Powers of attorney ❖ Health Care Directive (Living Wills) Our goal is to understand your legal needs and provide reasoned and effective solutions 3651 Roblin Blvd. Wpg., MB R3R 0E2 204.949.3241 www.canadalawonline.com John. W. Barber B.A., J.D., TEP Brent Buss B.A. (Adv.), LL.B. INTEGRITY | EXPERIENCE | PEACE OF MIND *Providing estate planning legal services for 30 years "A casket can be an average range of $1,200 up to $25,000, but urns are considerably less. You can get them for $100 to $400." Urns can also be personalized with pictures or formal engraving, he adds. "If you come into a columbarium building that has a number of glass-front niches, you can see stories of so many lives at a glance because there are dozens of personal items that give you a feel of who that person was," Gibbens says. "That's much more meaningful to folks who are coming out to visit later. They can be reminded of who that person was and how they affected them compared to a casket burial where you can only see the memorial marker." Richard Wojcik, president and owner of Wojcik's Funeral Chapels & Crematoriums, says the shift towards cremation is also due to family changes over the generations. "Families are getting smaller, and the younger generation is very fast-paced. People have the ability to live all over the world. They don't see their moms and dads like it used to be when you got together with your family every weekend," says Wojcik, a licensed funeral director and embalmer in Manitoba. "Now the perception of the final disposition of people is that they'd rather spend everything while they're alive and that no one goes to cemeteries anymore so they could be scattered at a favourite spot." Even if a family opts for cremation, the body can still be present for viewing and for the funeral service. "When people have died, if you don't see the person who's passed away, you're not getting that closure," Wojcik says. Similarly, Gibbens sees the value in holding a funeral service regardless of whether the individual is cremated or buried. "There is a lot of benefit to a family to say a final goodbye to an individual. One of the concerns we have in the profession is the growing trend of how people want to get the funeral over and done with as quickly as possible. If you rush through everything, you don't have the opportunity to see the same benefits," he says. "Not everybody goes through the grieving process in the same way. Some will need to view the body and say a final goodbye to that person, and some will not. Every way is the right way for that person. It's a difficult part of life, but we're here to help people through this." ❖ "You can send cremated remains to the moon or you can have the remains turned into a diamond. If the individual was a hunter, you can put them into a shotgun shell and have them scattered. You can take them down to Mexico and scatter them if that was your favourite holiday space."

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