Planning your funeral

The Zoroastrian Association of Houston has negotiated a special package with the Brookside Cemetery and Funeral Home that recog­nizes the community’s sensitivities and particular needs, as per an e-mail from its former president Kersi Engineer to the community. The "Dignity Package” includes a basic coffin, preparation of the body for viewing, use of the chapel for the funeral service, a basic flower arrangement, use of the hearse to convey the body to the crema­tory located about 1,000 ft away (from the chapel) and the cremation itself.

The family can be with the body as long as they want and the cremation can take place immediately after the funeral cere­mony. The attendees can have a short prayer recital there before the furnace is switched on, notes Engineer.

A normal funeral, arranged and paid for after death occurs, costs between $ 8,000 and $ 9,000 for a cremation and $ 10,000 to $ 11,000 for a burial, according to Engineer’s note. However, if the same arrangement is made pre-need the cost is $ 4,000. Apart from the financial benefit and the relief to the family from such pressure in their time of grief, Brookside being a part of the SCI group — the largest funeral home company in the world — the arrangement can be availed of at any of its 3,000 locations across US, Canada and several other countries if the family needs to relocate, writes Engineer. The company even provides a travel insurance for members who travel a lot "which means (that) if death should occur in any place in the world, Brookside would bring the body back to Houston at their own expense,” adds En­gineer. Also, if the member who has signed up with Brookside should be bereaved of a child or grandchild, the resulting funer­al service would be at no cost to the member. An installment payment plan, starting at $ 69 insures that if the member should die after paying even a single installment, the funeral service would be considered as fully paid for.