Services

When death occurs and cremation has been chosen, a member of the family or a caregiver will call Great Lakes Cremation Services. GLCS maintains a 24-hour telephone answering service for this purpose. The licensed director who responds to the call will determine when the removal will occur.

Once the removal occurs, the deceased will be taken to the crematory and placed in refrigerated storage. Michigan law states that a body must be buried, embalmed or cremated within 48 hours of death. During this 48-hour period we will gather obituary and vital information for the medical examiner's cremation permit and the death certificate. Great Lakes Cremation Services will assist in placement of obituaries, filing of death certificates and notifying of Social Security of the death.

If one chooses cremation, no casket is required. By law, the survivors have the option of purchasing an "alternative container" made of heavy cardboard or composition materials), or providing one themselves.

An urn is a container to hold the cremains. Urns come in a variety of materials and vary greatly in price. The cremated body may be kept by the family, buried in a cemetery, placed in a columbarium (a building with walls of recessed niches for permanent memorialization), or scattered on land or at sea. Most families select a form of memorialization with their cemetery of choice.

Memorial Services

Human beings have always marked death with ceremony as a means of honoring the dead, respecting the grief-stricken, and acknowledging ceremony as necessary to the healing process after loss has occurred.

Different cultures and traditions mark death in widely varying ways. Some people celebrate, examples: the New Orleans jazz funeral, the Irish Wake. Some set aside a defined period of time in which to mourn, such as the Jewish custom of "sitting shiva". Other cultures and religions observe special ceremonies like the Buddhist practice of forty-nine days of prayer between death and rebirth.


The inclination of our culture toward a more secular approach to ritual and ceremony has led to a decrease in some of the more traditional orthodox practices of mourning. However, grief and bereavement counselors, and those professional who deal with death and dying, find that the lack of ceremony can have detrimental effects on those left behind. It is clearly important and helpful to survivors to have some form of commemoration or ritual that marks the fact of death, publicly acknowledges their loss, and provides the opportunity for support and comfort.

The three most common types of ceremony are:

1. Funeral - A ceremony held in the presence of the body
2. Memorial service - A ceremony held without the body present
3. Committal service - A brief ceremony accompanying the final disposition, either at the graveside or in a chapel.

Personal, cultural and religious beliefs will, of course, play a large part in making the commemoration or memorial choices. All of the above ceremonies can be as religious or secular in tone and content as the family desires.

Email: info@greatlakescs.com

1-866-406-GLCS(4527)