Helpful Resources

You are Welcome to Explore our Curated Library of Guides, Articles, and Videos Designed to Support Families and Provide Reliable, Practical Information.

Writing and delivering a eulogy for a friend or family member is a wonderful way to participate in the funeral service.  It is an opportunity to acknowledge the importance of the life they lived, and to remind everyone of the memories and legacy left behind.  Here is a step-by-step guide to help you create and deliver a meaningful eulogy.

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Preparing a Memorial (“obituary”) for someone you love is best approached with care and thought. Like the funeral service itself, a memorial acknowledges the loss of our loved one, expresses the pain of their loss and the joy that their presence among us brought.  In fact, much of your memorial can be taken from the eulogy.  But, there are some elements that need to be added or modified.

Purpose:  A memorial enlists the aid of the community, whose support we will need in the coming days weeks and months.  Most immediately, it serves to identify and communicate the passing of your loved one, and to announce visitation, service, burial and memorial information.

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Directions for making your own Burial Cocoon for your Love One.

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Looking for Funeral and Cemetery Cost Comparisons in Texas? Texas has hundreds of cemeteries and funeral homes. This sampling of 2020 – 2021 Funeral and Cemetery Prices in Central Texas was carefully prepared by Funeral Consumers Alliance of Central Texas (FCACTX). It’s the only sampling of its kind, and well worth looking at!

Survey of Cemetery Prices (2024)
Survey of Funeral Home Prices (2025)

The Funeral Consumers Alliance of San Antonio, Texas, is all about informing the public about Funeral and Cemetery Cost Comparisons in Texas, among other things. Visit their site at https://www.funeralssatx.org/

You are invited to become a member and get their highly informative newsletters and announcements for their excellent events.

A Will for the Woods

What if our final act could help the planet? Musician and psychiatrist Clark Wang, battling lymphoma, explores green burial in this immersive documentary. Together with his partner Jane, they embrace environmentally friendly burials that conserve natural areas, inspiring a local cemeterian and working to protect a North Carolina forest from being clear-cut.

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Grave Matters

Grave Matters follows families who found in “green” burial a more natural, more economic, and ultimately more meaningful alternative to the tired and toxic send-off on offer at the local funeral parlor.

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When Someone Dies

  • When the person dies at home without hospice care, call 911, and have in hand a do-not-resuscitate document if it exists. Without one, paramedics will likely start emergency procedures and, except where permitted to pronounce death, may take the person to an emergency room for a doctor to make the declaration.
  • When the person dies at home under hospice care, call the hospice nurse, who can declare the death. If you are desiring a natural burial at Countryside Memorial Park call Sunny day or night at (512) 203-9739. She will connect you with a mortuary transport service that will take the body to a mortuary refrigeration facility if needed. If you are planning a Home or Family Directed Funeral and will be keeping the body at home, Sunny can connect you with an independent, licensed Funeral Director who is supportive of Natural Burial and can guide you every step of the way.

Pre-planning your natural burial and advance directive preferences is a tremendous gift to your family.

Most of us pre-plan for important life events such as a wedding, childbirth or a summer vacation. If our events involve others, we make the plans together. Death is a life event as well, and as significant as any other. We can’t plan for the moment of our death, but we can plan what happens to our bodies afterwards. If you’re reading this, you’ve likely thought about your burial. Pre-Planning is a wonderful thing. It ensures your funeral and burial will be a perfect reflection of your personal, unique style. Your loved ones will experience tremendous comfort and relief knowing they’ve done everything just as you wanted. Plus, you’ve already paid for it.

Leave a legacy for your family, not a mess. Take some time now to make and document your end of life decisions and make your burial plans for your green, eco burial known. Tell your Loved Ones where they can find the documents. In this way, they won’t have to agonize over what they think you may have wanted, and then have to make highly difficult, emotional and immediate decisions in the midst of tremendous grief. There is also the added possibility that some family members will strongly disagree with others regarding your funeral and burial, causing additional pain and grief for all. You are the one who has the final say.

Pre-planning your green funeral gives your Loved Ones the gift of your well-thought-out goodbye. With your natural burial plans in place, your funeral can be just about anything you want it to be! An added bonus is that your Loved Ones won’t have to spend thousands of dollars paying for that conventional-style funeral you never wanted in the first place.

We’re here to help with information, guidance and resources that will help you through the process.

Advance Directive Forms

Your Advance Directives are your voice for when you can no longer speak for yourself. They say exactly what you want to do. Completing them NOW spares your loved ones any agonizing guesswork, arguments among family members and needless guilt. Your completed Advance Directives are the final gift they’ll always remember and bless you for.

The Funeral Consumers Alliance of San Antonio, Texas  has compiled a comprehensive library of .pdf files on Advance Directives. They have graciously allowed us to share their collection with you. You can find Advanced Directives forms when you scroll to the bottom of this page.