Stuhr Funeral Home

Remembering your lost loved one’s anniversary can be a daunting day. This anniversary is typically a day of sadness and remembrance, but there are many ways that you can use this time to honor and pay respects to your loved one. Here are a few beautiful ways to keep your loved one alive in your mind and memory on this special day.

Preparing a child for a funeral service requires patience and strength, both for yourself and your little one. This is one of the most difficult moments in caretaking for children, but it must be done. Although the task of preparing children for a funeral service is daunting, there are ways to help ease you into approaching this difficult matter.

Attending the service of a loved one is never a simple feat. These are some of the most difficult days. However, there is a glimmer of hope in the fact that you can find unique ways to honor your loved one. The fact that you can initiate a gesture that is unlike the practices of regular funerals may give you comfort during this difficult time. It also serves as a reminder of what made your loved one so special. Here’s what you can do!

The holidays are here. For many, it’s the most joyful time of year. Yet, no matter how many years have passed, the season can be difficult when grieving the loss of a loved one. However, there are a few ways you can make the season a bit brighter.

Before people pass away, many hope to leave a legacy behind. This is a normal wish, as everyone has one life to live and wants to be remembered for something after they pass. It’s never too early to begin creating your legacy, and there are many ways to make sure your legacy lives on long after you’re gone. The following five ideas will help you brainstorm how you want to leave the legacy of your incredible life behind.

Discussing the topic of death with children can be difficult. Many children may not understand the concept of death or how to cope with it at such a young age. Everyone deals with death in different ways, including children, but there are a few ways to make this difficult discussion a bit lighter on both the giver and the receiver of the conversation.

Each year on November 11th, we come together as a nation to honor our veterans for their service, patriotism, bravery, and sacrifice for our country. Stuhr Funeral Home is proud to assist families in giving their late veterans honorable funerals and burials, including military honors and funeral benefits. Veterans have done so much for our country, and it is our duty at Stuhr Funeral Home to honor their lives.

“Stuhr Funeral Home has great compassion for families and individuals in mourning over the death of a loved one. One way we can offer help is by guiding survivors in their responses to the bereaved,” says Funeral Director Brian Calhoun. Most people, no matter how uncomfortable they are when expressing their feelings, can convey concern for a family member, friend, coworker, or acquaintance who has lost a loved one.

They’ve given us their unconditional love and loyalty, smothered us with kisses, comforted us, kept watch over our homes, made us laugh, motivated us to stay active and brought out our playful side. They are our pets and members of our families. We love them and after they’re gone, we love them still.

Despite what we might wish, death doesn’t always give notice before it arrives, which can make it even more difficult for loved ones left behind. “When a sudden death occurs, like with an accident or disease like COVID-19, it can compound our grief. We haven’t had time to prepare or process our feelings in advance,” says Brian Calhoun, Funeral Director at Stuhr Funeral Home.

The last thing anyone wants to think about after the loss of a loved one is finances, but funerals do cost money. In South Carolina, for instance, the average price of a burial in 2019 was $7,461 while the average cremation was $5,021, according to the National Funeral Directors Association.

In both times of celebration and of grieving, sending flowers is a time-honored tradition. However, there are some best practices to keep in mind regarding floral arrangements.

People leave behind a lot when they pass – loved ones, memories and often many material things. So, what do you do with these items after they’re gone?

Charleston is a city known for its hospitality, which is probably why there are so many amazing venues in the area to celebrate all of life’s milestones – including the last one. While memorial services are traditionally held in a funeral home or church, there’s no “right” place to honor your loved one. Non-traditional venues, like waterfront parks or historic homes, can be beautiful places to remember someone’s life and to say goodbye.

Advancements in digital technology have changed just about every aspect of our lives, from the way we shop to the way we communicate with each other. It’s even impacted the way we say goodbye to loved ones who have passed.

The holidays are meant to be a time of celebration, but for those grieving after losing a loved one, this time of year can be extra tough. And while it can be tempting to assume nothing will change, that simply isn’t true. 

Every November 11, Americans gather to honor all veterans of war for their patriotism, love of their country, and willingness to serve and sacrifice. In the last several years, to celebrate Veterans’ Day, J. Henry Stuhr Funeral Home has invited local fifth-graders to visit the Mt. Pleasant Memorial Gardens cemetery to place flags on veterans’ graves.

After you pass, having planned your own services saves your grieving family time and removes a host of weighty decisions they would otherwise have to make in a time of stress. It allows you to think carefully about what you want and convey your wishes to those left behind.

After you pass, having planned your own services saves your grieving family time and removes a host of weighty decisions they would otherwise have to make in a time of stress. It allows you to think carefully about what you want and convey your wishes to those left behind.

Grief is an important process in the wake of a loved one’s death and should not be rushed or judged. Each person grieves their own way. Dealing with the dearly departed’s possessions may be an element of that process. Stuhr Funeral Home, with locations throughout the Charleston area, knows that this can be a bittersweet experience that many people dread. They offer these tips to make the process as efficient and productive as possible.

Grieving the loss of a loved one is hard and often lonely. The funeral is over and others have begun to continue with their lives, while you are still struggling with the pain. It might feel as if there is no way out. But there is.

Widespread social media usage now nearly guarantees that the dearly departed will leave behind an account (or several). That will present some important decisions for family and friends to make in the aftermath of a death.

After friends, well-wishers and other family have returned home, it’s time for you and yours to attempt to move forward. The person you loved and lost would want you to be happy and enjoy life. So you begin to reclaim normalcy, occupying your mind with the activities of daily living, like cleaning the house, washing and drying clothes, and putting things away. One thing you might not be up for is cooking. Maybe your lost one was the chef of the family, and you have to quickly figure out how to feed your house of hungry folks.

When someone close to us passes away, our natural reaction is to grieve, but what form that grief takes is as varied as we are. There is no one way to grieve, but there are multiple ways to grieve healthily.

Obituaries are often written in haste and under duress, in the immediate aftermath of a loved one’s death. As a result, they may fail to capture the beautiful essence of the unique individual being eulogized. You can do better for your dearly departed, even if you’re not a writer, by following a few simple steps.

The grieving process for loved ones lost is not linear; we don’t grieve a little less every single day. Instead, the pain fades slowly over time with spikes of sadness often triggered by places, dates and events. The holidays are one time of year when our sense of loss may well up again, as we recall good times with those we have lost.

Home to Joint Base Charleston and formerly the Charleston Naval Base, Charleston has a deep-rooted military history. Today, an estimated 72,200 military veterans are living in the tri-county area.
These aren’t just veterans, but they are grandparents, husbands and wives, moms and dads, aunts and uncles, sons and daughters, and friends. And once they’ve passed, their life and service deserve to be honored.

Funerals in the South have traditionally been a gathering, a sad one, but a time for relatives and friends to come together and share memories. After the eulogy, the tears, and the lowering of the casket comes solace in the form of fried chicken, green bean casseroles and red velvet cake. Food for a family at this time is a gift, a helping hand when it comes to feeding all those who have come to mourn, and a reaffirmation of life as we gather together to tell stories.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Nowhere is that more relevant than at a funeral, where words often fail us, or go unheard through the fog of grief. Memory boards and memory tables have become popular at a variety of mourning gatherings – whether wake, funeral or life celebration – because they offer a simple way to touch memories and tell stories.

The world is changing. Hand-written notes have given way to texts. Birth announcements are made on Facebook. We even have a President who communicates with the nation via Twitter.
Even the most sensitive subject — the death of a loved one — is becoming the province of social media.

For many Americans, Memorial Day marks the unofficial start of summer, a time for barbecues with family and friends, and shopping at big sales.
But Memorial Day is so much more than that. It is a day to remember the one million Americans who gave what Abraham Lincoln called “the last full measure of their devotion” to the cause of freedom. It is a day of reverence, to stop our normal activities to thank, appreciate and recognize the ultimate sacrifice made by others so that we might enjoy the privileges of citizenship in this nation.

When someone we care about dies, beyond the pain and loss, we often feel a tremendous weight from our inability to do anything about it. Being permanent and inevitable, death can feel hopeless.

It’s said that funerals are for the living, not the dead. They provide closure, a ceremony that allows for communal expressions of grief, and a reminder of the value of the life lived and the loved ones left behind.

As we begin the New Year, Stuhr Funeral Home would like to invite the community to learn more about our "Journey of Hope" program. We designed this program to support individuals through their personal grief journey.

Losing a loved one is hard in so many dimensions, not the least of which is their absence from our lives. Often, we feel a responsibility to keep the memory of the departed alive after they have left us.

Fisher House is a new resource for veterans and their families in Charleston County and it needs your help. Veterans who come to the VA Hospital for long-term treatments have families who need a place to stay and Fisher House provides that to them for free.

In times of sadness and mourning, the colorful beauty and alluring scent of flowers can provide a sense of comfort. Flowers touch two senses and remind us of splendor in the world even at difficult moments.

From time to time we all consider the final step in our human experience, either by purchasing life insurance, writing a will or arranging for a burial plot. No one wants to be a burden on those we leave behind. But what about taking the next step, and considering how we want to be remembered? Benjamin Franklin did just that by writing his own epitaph, likening his body to an … Read More

Think about your favorite holiday or time of year – maybe it’s Christmas, Thanksgiving or summer vacation. There’s a good chance some of your best memories revolve around beloved family traditions – those rituals that give us stability, security and purpose.

Army Sgt. Brian Calhoun is a photojournalist with the South Carolina National Guard. He’s also the director of information technology and licensed funeral director with Stuhr Funeral Home in Charleston. Both these roles given Calhoun a unique perspective when it comes to helping families plan a military funeral. “I am very fortunate to work for a company that has embraced my desire to serve my country,” Calhoun says. “They have … Read More

Ever had a hard day at the office only to come home to your dog who’s beyond excited to see you walk through the front door? Your phone may be buzzing with text messages from colleagues, the kids may be asking “What’s for dinner?” and the laundry basket may be overflowing, but all that matters is a look and sloppy kiss from your best four-legged friend.

Sponsored by: Stuhr Funeral Home As with any important occasion, one of the big questions is: What to wear? People often wonder the same thing when it comes to funerals or memorial services. And while it may be a somber occasion, you still want to look your best to honor the life of the person who has passed. Here are a few current trends to ensure you are both respectful … Read More

Despite all our high-tech developments, still one of the best expressions of sympathy comes in a casserole dish. When a member of the church, a neighbor or your best friend’s spouse passes away, we are quick to mobilize with meals.