Virtual Funeral Services Offered To Assist Grieving Families

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – Coping with the loss of a close friend, or family member may be one of the hardest challenges many of us face.

During a time of stress and grief, local funeral homes are using technology to help families.

If you’ve ever lost a loved one, you know one of the first things you feel is overwhelmed but that feeling only gets worse if you aren’t able to say your final good byes.

“They are willing to drop everything and pay that money but in the end after the fact it may not be the best thing financially that they needed to do at that point,”said Lowndes  Funeral Home Caleb Pounder.

For families miles and time zones away, the decision can be heartbreaking.

Benchmark Funeral home Owner Dessie Clinton Robson says that’s where technology steps in.

“Live streaming of the service, allows them to be anywhere in the united states and they can actually turn on a computer and even hook it up their their Smart TV for a wider screen and actually see and hear the entire service,” said Benchmark Funeral home Owner Dessie Clinton Robson.

Lowndes  Funeral Home and crematory has offered Virtual Funeral Services since 2012.

Pounder says they added it because, it can be one less burden on a grieving family.

“We had a family that was going to have to drop everything fly from California to here and it was a husband and a wife and three kids and that’s 5 plane tickets. That is very expensive especially last minute.

Clinton Robson says a family should never be faced with the decision of whether or not they get to say their final goodbyes to their loved ones for any reason.

“So individuals who are not able to actually commute or transport to. For family members who are in the military who have families all over the country they may want to use those services or a family member who has a new job who can’t take off to come in for days of service or better still that family member can but there are four of them and it’s not financially feasible. So they pay a small fee and they do the live stream the day of the service,” said Robson.

Both funeral homes start the live stream 10 minutes before and it concludes 10 minutes after the service.

Pounder says they don’t want the family to worry about anything other than their loved ones the day of the funeral.

“We can make it as it as private as we need to. Some families are open to letting any body see it we can publish the web link every service that we do is assigned a specific web link for that service so we can publish it for the public or we can make it private and just give it to the family. We can password protect it so that no one can view it,” said Pounders

Clinton’ Robson says live streaming is just the beginning of possibilities for families laying a loved one to rest.

Robson says one service they offer is a head stone chip that provides a live cemetery feed for family members who live miles away.

Robson says one service they offer is a head stone chip that provides a live cemetery feed for family members who live miles away.

For more information on Virtual Funeral Services visit:

Benchmark Funeral Home Service: https://www.google.com/search?q=benchmark+memorial+life+center

Lowndes Funeral Home: http://www.lowndesfuneralhome.net/