Respectance.com

Funeral home directors are using the internet to buy supplies, you read about it every day, you have national conferences that tell you how your clients are wired. So why don’t you get it? Why do we have to keep banging our heads against a wall just to get you to see, hear and feel? Customers are asking for it, we’re telling you people want it. Listen up!

The internet has become an indispensable tool for work. People (your customers) are also using the internet as a primary means of communicating news to friends and family. Whether it’s via email or social networking sites like Respectance or Facebook, this is where we are sharing our news. The good and the bad.

When we came home from the NFDA in October we were filled with confidence from all of the positive feedback we’d gotten about Respectance. At the same time it was very obvious that most funeral homes were busy with prehistoric websites. Ever realized that most artists get more visitors online via their social network profiles, than via their own, personal websites? Did you know that family members and friends are sending each other more messages via social networks than via email nowadays? We think you ought to realize.

As Timothy Totten said in his October comment to us, “Unfortunately, this industry (sic funeral business) lags behind most others in terms of technology. While I think you’re in for some pretty serious resistance from most funeral directors, I’d encourage you to pursue the more progressive firms and work toward making your service an “inevitability” for the industry.”

It’s time for the funeral homes to put their client’s needs first. It is not only about greenbacks. We at Respectance are listening. We are offering our site and expertise to you FREE to pass it on as a value added service to your clients.
Come on guys, let’s not start taking the sailing boat for a trip to Paris. You take the airplane. Or do you really have so much time that you keep on sailing the ocean, because you always have done it that way?

p.s. the photo was taken in 2003 when there was a total blackout and inhabitants of Queens were forced to use the payphone. Cell phones did not work at that time.
The photo was shot by mark [at] sorabji.com, more of his work can be found at www.payphone-project.com/stories/blackout/. Thanks for capturing this unique moment in modern times.

p.s.2 we changed one story line after long and sensible comments from our readers. Thank you guys for being so upfront. We like that.

Print

I do not want to add too many words. This photo says more than a thousand words can do.
We got touched by this photo the first time we saw it. Respect to the photographer.

Print

Respectance has been around since July 2007. Most people know us from our beautiful online memorial community. But not everybody knows that we are quite popular with our own YouTube channel.

To help people to contemplate or just to remind them that we should not forget about certain people or incidents, we set up this channel. We always try to make a special SlideShow Tribute to honor those we love. We collect them all in our YouTube channel, so people will understand what we are about.

In the beginning we were not quite sure if it would be appreciated by you. But now we are so glad that we started it. We are getting so many viewers from all around the world. And they love to comment and join in at this channel. Or, of course, come to the Tribute that we created within Respectance.

For instance the Video Tribute we made for Stephanie Kuleba who died far too young, attracted a lot of people. All of a sudden we were one of the most viewed videos of this day. And it was a great honor to see some international newspapers link to our YouTube channel. We are grateful that we are getting this great response and that people are embracing the use of modern mediums to remember our loved ones. It seems we are really creating a new tradition.

Print

What has the world come to? How crazy have things gotten? The need to ‘perfect’ has now begun to drive young women, girls really, to extraordinary lengths.

Last Saturday Stephanie Kuleba, the 18 year old captain of her cheerleading squad died after undergoing cosmetic breast surgery to correct congenital defects, and augmentation. Her surgery was in a doctor’s surgical clinic, not a hospital and her death appears to have been caused by a reaction to the anaesthesia. Her surgery, like millions of other cosmetic procedures, was elective, not necessary. Like others who have died this year during cosmetic procedures (Kanye West’s mother Donde), Stephanie would still be alive today if not for vanity. Is ‘perfection’ worth a life?

Come and share your thoughts, and your grief over this tragedy with us at Stephanie’s Tribute.

Print

How do you explain death to children? I have vague memories of my mother telling me that, when someone dies, I can’t play with them anymore. They won’t be around today or tomorrow. I remember sitting on the couch in our living room and realizing, perhaps for the first time, the permanency of that thought. But my mother also offered me hope ..which, at that age, I especially needed. She told me some of her own spiritual and religious thoughts, as well as the fact that life is long and runs in cycles of youth progressing into age. And that is what I remember of that conversation.

Today I came across a list of books explaining death to kids. The topic can be so abstract, so confusing to children. The book titles include things like When Dinosaurs Die: A Guide to Understanding Death (Brown, Laurie Krasny and Marc Brown) and Everett Anderson’s Goodbye (Clifton, Lucille). More of the list items can be found with a simple Google search.

This is also an issue that must impact many people who visit Respectance.

With that mind, how did you or your children first learn about death?

Print