How Can You Arrange an End of Life Celebration Through a Cremation Service Provider? An Interview with Ronette Leal McCarthy

Credit: Ronette Leal McCarthy

Today SevenPonds interviews Ronette Leal McCarthy, an Illinois licensed attorney and counsel at Elements, the cremation company. Ronette earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana and Chicago. She earned her Juris Doctorate from Chicago-Kent College of Law. Ronette serves as in-house legal counsel to Elements, the cremation company, which provides cremation services throughout the Chicagoland area and surrounding suburbs.  Ronette currently serves on the POLST (Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment) Illinois and was appointed to the Executive Committee.  She also serves as a Board Member to the Chicago End-of-Life Care Coalition (CECC) and is the Program Chairperson for 2014.  

Gabriella: Can you tell me about your company Elements?

Ronette: Elements, the cremation company, is a full-service cremation provider. We provide cremation directly to families, which is different than stand-alone funeral homes. Our business is specific to our geographic area, but we also have a much larger geographic area than other companies. We provide anything from simple end of life ceremonies to grand ceremonies. All the things take place wherever the family wants. Although most ceremonies take place somewhere important to them and their loved one.

Gabriella: I took a look at your website, and saw under ‘celebrating life’ there were many things your company plans for the celebration. Is that what most families take advantage of? Also, do other cremation companies offer this?

Ash scattering at a meaningful place
Credit: Archive.wn.con/Pubic Domain

Ronette: Absolutely, we always tell the families that we can be as involved or as uninvolved as they like. Some families do traditional ceremonies, where they gather at a religious building. Then, we have non-traditional ceremonies, with services that revolve around the likes, interests or backgrounds of the family’s loved one whom they lost. We also differ in our ability to work with family to plan meaningful celebrations. The main distinction between us and other companies is that we have twenty plus years of event planning. We make each ceremony tailored to each person’s individual plans — not just any standard ceremony. One ceremony we helped plan was a trip to the Swiss Alps where a family spread remains over mountains.

Gabriella: Is your company primarily web based, or do you have a location where the clients can come?

Ronette: We provide cremation services and everything else that goes along with that, service (wake/visitation), memorial service – small or large, but we do not operate a funeral home, nor do we own one in conjunction with Elements — we’re not a traditional brick and mortar. We provide wherever services the family may wish for, if needed we may rent a traditional funeral home space, but most of our families when they learn about the other available possibilities, do not have services in a traditional funeral home setting. That is why they are coming to us to begin with – to do something different.

As to visitations or wakes, I would say 95% of our families have no service prior with the loved one present. They have memorial services, church masses, etc. after the cremation is complete with or without the cremains present.  If we do burial we are burying the cremains.  We do not bury full-body.  We are a cremation service provider not a traditional funeral home that does body burial and cremations.  We made a decision to only provide cremation – and anything that may go along with it. Lately we have had requests for having the visitation at home so we are considering this for the future.

Gabriella: How long have you and your husband been in the business?

Ronette: My husband has been doing it for more than twenty years. He is a funeral director and he comes from a traditional funeral background originally. He isn’t part of a family that has a tradition of funeral homes. Rather, when sixteen, he worked for a florist because he wanted to drive. So he would deliver the flowers to various places, although his most frequent visit was to the one to the funeral home. The director of the funeral home offered him a job as a driver, telling him that he could drive the Lincolns and Cadillacs. Instead, he started by washing and parking cars. Feeling connected to the business, he continued through university in Mortuary where he was classically trained. Then in his early to mid 20s, he felt that there was an opportunity to families that was missing– it was cremation.

Elements Logo
Credit: Ronette Leal McCarthy

While, I am a licensed attorney, and I provide assistance and help to the families. I worked a lot with end-of-life planning, and it seemed like a natural thing to work together. So, I began providing legal services to our families. The families can talk about anything that may come: about the next step in life, and closing things up.

Gabriella: How long has Elements been around?

Ronette: Two years of Elements being in existence. Before Elements, my husband had another cremation company, which was very similar, he owned as well. But Elements is something we decided to create together adding additional services to families, offering a wide range of support for end of life, help in selling home or navigating various issues.

Tips for discussing your end of life wishes with your family:

• Being more direct is often better, than scurrying around the topic.
• Conversations are better when family talks before they come to Elements. Talk to your family about your end-of-life wishes.

Gabriella: Thank you for sharing with us.

Ronette: Of course!

More from SevenPonds:

• Want to plan a end of life celebration? Check out our remembrance event guide for step by step planning and a check list.
• How Can Your Family Resell a Cemetery Plot?
• Want to leave heartfelt nonmaterial gifts to your family? Learn about leaving an ethical will or heart will.