Eternal Planning Your Home Funeral Partner

by Kristi Antley

Society in general has lost the connection to and communal significance of traditions surrounding death and funerals. Over the past 100 years, this once family-directed gathering has been gradually transformed into a generic program managed and orchestrated by professional technicians and directors. Many people are often left feeling helpless and overwhelmed within the formalities and restrictions of typical funeral home protocol. This is an additional burden to their traumatic loss.

Cassandra Lluvera, owner of Eternal Planning, LLC, is passionate about families regaining control of funeral services. Gone are the days of a deceased loved one being immediately swept away by an official or taking on extreme debt to finance the end-of-life service. Home funerals are a personal, intimate and meaningful way to say goodbye. This approach allows close members of the community and extended family to bond during the grieving process. It is legal, family-led, eco-conscious, efficient and affordable, and takes place one to three days after the last breath. Cassandra assists and accommodates clients on every step of the journey, sharing the advantages and disadvantages of each possible scenario. This includes education, training, counseling, burial choices, insurance details and disposition options. She is known as the Midlands’ “home funeral partner.”

Death planning is a deeply personal and often unpleasant topic; reasons for choosing one type of burial over another are as varied as you can imagine. For many, it essentially comes down to cost, environmental impact, character, religion and legacy. It is important to provide services that are respectful and appropriate to the wishes of the deceased person and that remain within the family’s budget. Traditional funerals include a few hallmarks we have come to expect—an expensive coffin, abundant flowers and embalming of the deceased—along with many additional options. As you will learn from Cassandra, most of these embellishments are not necessary or legally required.

Embalming—the preservation of human remains for public display, which utilizes a chemical mixture to delay decomposition and makes the body appear “natural”—is more of a cosmetic procedure than a public health safeguard. There are 7,974 deaths each day in the United States, and it takes 2.5 gallons of embalming fluid to embalm the average person. That comes to 19,935 gallons of embalming fluid buried in the earth daily, spread across an estimated 1 million acres of land.

“Green” burials do away with both the embalming chemicals and the extraneous cement, steel or other non-biodegradable materials conventional burials put into the earth, and lack the carbon footprint of cremation, which has been calculated to be the equivalent of a 500-mile car journey. One hundred and fifteen million tons of casket steel is used annually; this is enough steel to build the Empire State Building over 2,000 times.

At Eternal Planning, clients have access to a wide range of services, tools and resources that will help them understand and create a personal home funeral service. A large portion of the anxiety, confusion and stress that accompanies death can be substantially minimized with knowledge. The best way to prepare your family for the death of a loved one is to have a funeral advance directive. Make sure that it is documented whether you want a traditional funeral, home funeral, traditional burial or green burial. Cassandra believes that human death should be supported—financially, emotionally and culturally—in ways our modern culture often fails to do. By taking measures to face and prepare for the inevitable, you will eliminate the mystery and stigma that surrounds the process of leaving this world.

For more information, call Cassandra Lluvera at 803-846-7993 or visit EternalPlanningSC.com. See ad, page 4.