How can I help my aging parent? Where can I find information on dealing with grief? How can I commemorate the death of my pet? How can I help someone who is mourning the loss of a loved one?

Questions like these are the reason we have created this newsletter, because these are questions that we all my face at some point. With a little knowledge, we can be better prepared when these situations arise and we want to share that knowledge with you. This is a way for us to contribute to the community and provide answers and/or helpful tips to the questions that you have. You see, at Jacobs Funeral Homes and Cremation Services, Inc., we do more than arrange funerals. We provide help and support to you in your time of need and in the many days following your loss.

We have many resources available to your family on a variety of topics. Our lending library contains books and brochures on many diverse topics like writing a eulogy or choosing between a nursing home or assisted living facility or videos on helping children deal with the loss of a loved one, qualifying for Medicaid assistance, creating a permanent on-line memorial for your loved one or even finding a support group. We have the information you are looking for and we are here to help you.

These resources help families better understand and work through the emotions involved in loss and mourning, with the goal of eventual acceptance and healing.

This newsletter is intended to help the families in this community by providing useful information, so they can make informed decisions or get the information they need. We will occasionally be sending out new issues and hope that you will enjoy reading them. If you have any specific topics that you'd like to see us address, please feel free to call us, it helps us to know what you are interested in.

As always, if you have any questions regarding funerals, the services we provide or other matters, please do not hesitate to call us, we are here to serve you.

— Perry Jacobs, Founder, Jacobs Funeral Homes & Cremation Services, Inc.

One of the newest additions to our funeral homes is our new website. You can find it at www.JacobsFuneralHomes.com.

Not only do we list the obituaries and service times for the families that we serve, we have added some special tools that we feel will help us serve our community even better.

In many cases, we do not have the opportunity to attend a visitation or even a service. Work and famly demands, have limited our time. At Jacobs Funeral Homes, we wanted to give you the opportunity to express your feelings and so we have developed several tools to communicate your feelings to those loved ones. Our Online Condolences, Memorial Tributes and Light A Candle features offer you the chance to put your feelings into words. We have found that our families love to be able to read through these special tributes during quiet moments after the funeral services.

We also realize that grief is not something that is often tolerated by our "hurry up and move on" world. But grief is real and we can't rush ourselves through the journey. To help you and your family members through the journey of grief, we offer you several tools, each developed to suit certain personalities. Our Online Grief Library is helpful for those who like to research things and understands what happens both physiologically as well as emotionally as we deal with grief. Our Bulletin Boards and Chat Rooms offer you the chance to not only express your feelings, but also meet with those who have experienced grief similar to your own. Working with Beyond Indigo, the web's leading source of information on grief, grieving, death and dying, we hope to be able to help you answer your questions about grief.

Another feature we are very proud of is our Pet Loss/Tribute area. Unfortunately, people who have not shared their lives with pets often don't understand that special human-animal bond that we share with our beloved fur-kids. When a beloved pet dies, we experience the same kind of grief we would experience when any loved one passes on. We hope that the tools available in our Pet Loss/Tribute will help you with your journey through this very personal and unique grief.

If you have any questions or comments about our website, please feel free to call us at Jacobs Funeral Homes. We love to hear from you.