My grandmother passed on a Monday.  My father called the funeral home and could not get an appointment to meet the Funeral Director until 9PM on Wednesday of that week.  The only available day and time for the funeral was at 6Pm on Sunday.  It was a 12 hour drive one way from where I lived and flying still left me with a 3 hour drive to the funeral.  I was being deployed to Afghanistan the next day, so I was not able to attend the funeral.  Had my father been able to use KiOhana.com, he could have found a funeral home that would have accommodated the time needed for me to attend.  He would not have had to waste most of the week to meet Funeral Directors on their time  availability but could have made all the arrangements on Tuesday and had the service on Thursday or Friday giving me the ability to attend.  The convenience that KiOhana.com affords would have allowed me to be at my grandmother’s funeral.

When my mother passed, I was the person who had to make arrangements for the funeral.  We called a funeral home and set an appointment to meet the Funeral Director.  We went to the funeral home only to discover the Funeral Director was at a different location 25 miles away.  We then drove to the other location and met with the Funeral Director.  He was courteous and helpful, and I was able to maintain my emotions through the event.  However, when we had to go to another room and select a casket, the emotions overwhelmed me.  It was so difficult to stand there and select the place my mother would be entombed.  Given the opportunity to have used KiOhana.com and completed everything at home, I would have in a second.  My wife and I spent the entire day driving and planning the funeral.  We could have done it at home much easier with less emotional stress.  We will use KiOhana should we ever have to plan another funeral again.

My spouse fought a hard battle against cancer.  I just could not think of making funeral arrangements while he fought for his life.  It would have been a sign of giving up.  When cancer finally claimed his life, I was so exhausted and spent that I dreaded dealing with the funeral arrangements.  It was emotionally more difficult than the months of chemo and dealing with the sickness associated with cancer treatments.  If there had been any way that I could have avoided the trip to the funeral home, I would have.  Now, there is an option available that I did not have a few years ago.  KiOhana.com would have been a life saver for me.  I could have had a close friend sit with me, and we could have made the arrangements in my home.  If I got emotional, which I did, I could have stopped and come back to finish on my time.  This would have relieved me of so much stress and given me the emotional energy I needed through this terrible event in my life.  I tell others about my experience, and they agree that KiOhana.com is a great option to use when you are faced with such a life challenge.