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We'll Take Care Of Everything.
"When death comes, breaking into the circle of our friends, words fail us,
our mental machinery ceases to operate…"
Edward Carpenter (1844-1929)
Can you ever be truly prepared for the death of someone you love?
As many times as your mind tells you that death is natural and inevitable, your emotions may never really receive the message. So when death comes, grief or shock can make it difficult to do even the smallest task, let alone make all the decisions and arrangements for a funeral.
That's why it's so important to have someone you can count on to help. Since 1918, San Antonio families have put their trust in our family. At Porter Loring Mortuaries, we help by outlining the decisions you need to make and putting them in perspective. We take care of everything, not only in arranging the funeral that will meet your needs, but even the smallest helpful details that you may never have considered, including legal requirements and other paperwork.
Just as we've been doing for families like yours for three generations.
We'll provide the services you need, whenever you need them.
Immediate Need. When need is immediate, we respond at once and with compassion, helping you through this difficult time.
Bereavement Care. Our Porter Loring Family Care Services program is there to help your family deal with their emotional needs before, during and after the funeral
Advance Planning. Plan exactly what you and your family want, for what you want to pay-taking the burden off your family. You can make arrangements in person, by telephone, or even over the Internet at porterloring.com.
We'll help you deal with your immediate needs, step by step.
Whether a death is sudden or the expected outcome of long illness, the impact on those left behind can be equally severe. Emotional stress and simple lack of sleep can make the first day or two after a death occurs an especially trying period. Yet, unless advance planning has been done, there are over 75 decisions and actions that have to be made by the family during that time. At Porter Loring Mortuaries, we understand this. And we believe that when arranging a funeral, it's crucial for us to provide your family with sensitive response and practical help with such details as:
Explaining options, guiding, and helping you plan the service that meets your individual needs.
Writing the obituary notice and placing it in the local paper, as well as papers in other towns if desired.
Reviewing funeral-related benefits for former military personnel, teachers and/or public employees-then coordinating or helping the family apply to the proper agencies.
Choosing the funeral register book, preparing and printing memorial leaflets, prayer cards and other items that might be wanted.
Notifying clergy or others you'd like to conduct the service.
Coordinating and instructing pallbearers once they have been chosen.
Completing the death certificate and filing the forms and permits required.
To begin with, we will outline those things to be done, explain the requirements and significance of each one, and begin the necessary arrangements and paperwork. In fact, except for very personal matters (choice of clothing and jewelry for the deceased, for example), we can and will follow your unique wishes and take on as many responsibilities as possible. In addition to the funeral register book, we provide a book for you to take home for visiting friends to sign and for you to record gifts of flowers and food, telephone calls and all the many other things that take place there. We even provide a journal to help you gather and organize all the information you'll need before, during and after the service, including reminders of whom to contact regarding benefits, insurance and other important personal matters.
We'll coordinate with the cemetery.
The choice of a cemetery location is a very personal one. At Porter Loring, we believe that choice should be based on your family's preference. Because we do not operate a cemetery, we are free to:
Provide you with a list of local cemeteries and memorial parks.
Advise you on important questions to ask regarding site, marker, perpetual care, costs and other matters.
Coordinate with and conduct services in any cemetery, local or out-of-area.
We'll provide exactly the type of service desired.
Traditional funeral.
This is still the preferred choice for most families. We take care of all transportation, embalming and other preparation. We can also help you in choosing the following items:
- Casket-a wide range of styles, materials, finishes and linings is available, with prices to fit any need.
- Vault-various styles are available, and choice will depend on cemetery requirements and any preference expressed by the family.
Cremation services.
Cremation has become the choice of a growing number of people. Porter Loring can provide numerous options, depending on your exact wishes:
- Simple cremation and delivery of the ashes to the family.
- Cremation followed by burial or entombment of the ashes.
- Visitation or a memorial service before cremation.
- Memorial service after cremation-with or without ashes present.
We can also help you with all details, including the choice of:
- A cremation container-or an appropriate casket, if visitation before cremation is desired.
- Urn-a wide variety of urns and memorial containers are available.
- Type of visitation or memorial service-before or after cremation.
Military service.
If you're a veteran, we want to see you and your family receive the honors and benefits you've earned through service to our country. San Antonio has always been a military town, so it's not surprising that Porter Loring has become skilled in dealing with the details of military funerals, from the simplest to the most elaborate. These typically include:
- Reviewing benefits, to guide funeral plans and avoid unnecessary spending.
- Obtaining the flag, which may be draped over the casket or simply presented to the family.
- Arranging an honor guard and other details, as appropriate.
- Coordinating with local military representative and cemeteries.
- Helping the family apply for specific benefits (including cemetery space, headstone or other marker, if applicable).
We'll help you arrange the visitation environment.
Comfortable, traditionally decorated visitation rooms are available at both Porter Loring locations. These provide an appropriate environment for friends to gather, express their sentiments to the family, pay their respects and provide comfort in a personal way. Our rooms may be personalized with photographs and/or special items memorializing and celebrating the life of your family member. Tasteful arrangements of items important in the person's life, say, a musician's instrument and favorite sheet music, or a horse-lover's riding boots, saddle and tack, a golfer's clubs-these can help family and friends focus on the joys, interests and accomplishments that have made that individual's life so unique.
We'll encourage you to personalize the service arrangements.
Type. There are a variety of choices, from a short, simple service to an expanded celebration of the person's life.
- Traditional. Always appropriate, a conventional service can be arranged in accordance with any religious tradition. If desired, rites by fraternal orders or other special ceremonial requirements can be accommodated, as well.
- Family or friend-conducted. More and more, this is the choice made by those with no specific religious affiliation or who simply prefer to have friends or relatives conduct the service. The memorial can include readings, music and tributes by family and friends, or rites of special personal significance.
- Military. As appropriate, this can range from the simple presence of military personnel at a traditional service to a full formal military service in a national cemetery, complete with flag, honor guard, salute or other protocol.
Location. The service can be conducted at the funeral home chapel, at a church, synagogue, or other house of worship, military chapel, or only at the graveside. In addition, we take great pride in arranging services in special locations-such as parks, open fields, ranches or other settings that are meaningful to the family.
Flowers. You can order flowers through us from selections we can show you. We can also recommend independent florists, or work with any florist you prefer to assure the kind of floral arrangements desired.
Music. Naturally, our own chapel organist and vocal soloist are available. We can also contact anyone else you may have in mind, or provide suggestions from a list of available musicians. If you prefer, you may also bring in recorded music that has special significance to your family.
Speakers/readings. Speakers may include clergy, family members, friends, or others whose words would be helpful to everyone.
Other participants. These may include pallbearers, musicians, honor guard for formal military funeral, members of fraternal orders, or other special groups who have been associated with the family.
Life history display. Arranging and displaying photos, individual items or groups of articles-reflecting a person's special interests, activities and achievements-can provide vivid and positive reminders of a life fully lived.
Transportation for family, close friends, pallbearers and clergy.
Online Obituaries. This exclusive internet obituary database, with Interactive Guestbook provides a unique way for family and friends to share biography, anecdotes and sentiments.
We'll help you with details immediately following the funeral.
Provide the Register Book signed by those who visited or attended the funeral.
Give you a list of those who sent flowers, cards or any other type of remembrance.
Provide cards to acknowledge flowers, food or cards received, and to write notes of thanks for any special thoughts.
Arrange for additional death certificates for filing with insurance companies, pension funds, and other needs.
We'll always be here to help your family deal with grief.
The grieving process may be short or long, and the impact of grief may not be fully felt until some time after the funeral. We're here at any time you need us, even if it is a year or more after the funeral. Specific services include:
A set of bereavement literature, provided at the end of the service. This literature can help you understand the grieving process and guide you toward healing.
Immediate or future personal bereavement counseling by a certified grief counselor.
Ongoing grief support groups, with regularly scheduled meetings. (A list of groups and current schedules is available via phone or on our website.)
Individual and family counseling, available for those who would like extra support and guidance at any point in their grief.
Parenting Consultation, to help your children understand death and how they can be involved in the family group.
Why we encourage advance planning.
The more you plan ahead for the inevitable need of a funeral, and the earlier you include your family in the process, the greater the emotional peace and practical benefits can be for everyone concerned. At Porter Loring Mortuaries, it costs nothing to investigate those benefits, and we'll be happy to help you start the process. Simply by writing down what you want and sharing those ideas with a Porter Loring representative, you minimize the choices your family has to make during the difficult first days of their loss. Of course, by pre-planning and pre-paying, you remove a financial burden as well, since unplanned funerals can often put to a tremendous strain on family savings or budgets. In brief, advance planning lets you:
Remove the emotional and financial burden from your family.
Make sure both your final wishes and your family's emotional needs will be honored.
Make decisions based on calm study of your options, not on pressing need.
Organize insurance, other documents and information so no benefits are overlooked.
Control the details-and the costs-of the funeral.
Pay for tomorrow's need at today's lower costs-through options to pre-pay or to cover most costs through several special funding plans.
Why Porter Loring?
Why do we put so much emphasis on family? On showing the kind of concern you'd expect from a friend or neighbor? On our desire to "take care of everything" for you?
To start with, Porter Loring Mortuaries is San Antonio's oldest family-owned funeral home still operating under the same family management. Ever since the company was founded in 1918, we envisioned ourselves as different from the aloof attitudes and chilly atmosphere typical of other funeral firms of the day. In discussing what motivated him to enter this profession, Porter Loring Sr. once told his staff that he was determined not to be an 'undertaker':
"Instead, I was going to operate a mortuary, one that had for itself ideals, where respect for the dead, and sympathy for the families who came to it would be expressed in every way I could create, and where every employee would radiate that same fact in their contact with families, in their language, and in their manner of living."
Three generations later, all of us at Porter Loring Mortuaries continue to live by that same credo. To express respect for each other and for the families we serve. To provide services that respond to changes in social custom and personal need. And to look for new ways to make a person's last rites more comforting and more meaningful to family and friends.
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