Name: Vander Plaat-Vermeulen Memorial Home
Address: 530 High Mountain Road, Franklin Lakes, NJ, 07417
Telephone: 201-891-4770

Mourning During COVID-19

What are my options? Can I still grieve?

This is a difficult time for everyone. While we are all trying to learn how to navigate this new world, major life events, like the death of a loved one, are still taking place. It can be difficult to maneuver through guidelines and learn this new way to grieve. You may be left thinking that you have no options when it comes to planning arrangements during this time but that is not true. Below you will find a guide on how navigate mourning during Covid and learn what we are doing as a business to ensure the safety of our workers, families, and surrounding community.

Planning Funeral Arrangements During Coronavirus

Accommodated or Outdoor Memorial Services

While indoor gatherings are limited to 150 people or 25% of a rooms maximum capacity, we are still able to host an outdoor memorial service where the deceased is displayed through a doorway or window and loved ones will be able to come pay their final respects while remaining outside and maintaining social distancing guidelines. An outdoor memorial service will can be conducted in a number of ways and still be personalized to the deceased life through decorations or activities that respect the state's guidelines. We are more than happy to work with you on making an outdoor or accommodated memorial service as personalized as we can.

Postponed Arrangements

If you would prefer to wait until loved ones can gather in a more traditional manner, we offer immediate cremation services with a postponed memorial service or celebration of life. Choosing an option like this provides you the time to plan something that is exactly what you would want and gather the funds for it, if that is an important consideration.

Traditional Visitation with Cremation

It is not uncommon to think that a cremation must be done immediately upon the body of your loved one coming into our care, however, it is very possible to have a traditional visitation with the body present prior to their final disposition. Similarly to an accommodated or outdoor memorial service, we can provide a viewing through a door or window of our funeral home while loved ones pay their respects and remain outside. We then continue with the cremation and, if decided, a memorial service or celebration of life can be held, or the loved one's cremated remains will be placed back into your care to do what you please with them.

Live-streamed or Recorded Services

If burial is the preferred disposition method and you would like to have a traditional funeral or graveside service, we offer live streaming services so the arrangements can be tuned in by loved ones remotely. We also offer recording services, depending on the connectivity capabilities of the preferred cemetery, to be given to the family and distributed how they see fit.

What are we doing as a business to be more safe?

There is nothing more important to us than the safety and the well-being of our families, staff, and community. While we are trying to maintain some kind of normalcy we must be considerate and respect the state's recommended guidelines. As of September 2, 2020 these are the recommended safety guidelines as written on the New Jersey COVID-19 Information Hub website (here).

Indoor gatherings for weddings, funerals, or memorial services must be limited to 150 people or 25% of a room's capacity - whichever number is lower
General outdoor gatherings must be limited 500 people and social distancing must be practiced
Face coverings are required in indoor public spaces and in outdoor public spaces when social distancing is difficult to maintain

If you are planning a memorial service or celebration of life service off of funeral home property, you will find some safety tips and best practices for gatherings:

Remind invited guests to stay home if they have been exposed to the virus in the last 14 days, are showing COVID-19 symptoms, or recently traveled to an area or state with high COVID-19 infection rates
Ask guests to wear face coverings when they cannot social distance
Make hand sanitizer available for guests
Limit the number of people handling or serving food - for example, consider identifying one person to serve all good so that multiple people are not handling the serving utensils
Remind guests to wash their hands before serving or eating good
Use single-use hand towels or paper towels for drying hands so guests do not share a towel
Clean and disinfect commonly touched surfaces and any shared items between use when feasible
Consider keeping a list of guests who attended for potential future contact tracing needs. If you are called by a contact tracer, it's critical that you answer the call to protect us all.