Most people die in a hospital. Even if somebody dies at home or in the street, you call an ambulance and the person is taken to hospital. In that sad event you feel quite helpless. One of the duties for the close family members is to arrange the funeral. Normally you get in touch with the office of the Lutheran church in your area to agree about a burial site. In Helsinki you should get in touch with the Helsingin seurakuntayhtymä. They will allocate a place for the grave. They charge equal amount whether you are Lutheran or not. You will also agree a date for the funeral service in the cemetery chapel. Usually the burial takes place after a few weeks. You can have your own pastor and musician, or you can have them arrange the pastor and organist for you. Then you will have to get in touch with an undertaker company to order the casket. You can buy flowers through them as well. They are also willing to sell you the tomb stone with the writing on it.

One matter which you will have to decide is if the burial will take place in the form of cremation or burial of the body. In cremation the personnel of the chapel will burn the body and the casket into ashes. The ashes will then be placed in the cemetery. Traditionally Christians have not been cremated, but nowadays it is the most common way of burial, because it is cheaper and friendlier to the environment. You may hesitate about cremation if that is not done in your culture among Christians. You may feel that it would be a bad testimony. It is true that burying the body is a way of saying that we believe in the resurrection of the body. But actually the burning does not stop God from resurrecting us. Many of the early Christian saints very burned by their enemies and there was no doubt that they still will be resurrected by our Lord Jesus Christ.
You may want to bury your loved one in the country of your origin. Then you have to consider that it is very costly to send the body over there. Maybe you have the community of your countrymen to help in the cost. In this case you can have a memorial meeting at the hospital chapel with the friends gathered to the presence of the body. You may call a pastor to lead prayers. It is good if you can ask somebody to lead some singing together for this occasion.
 If the dead person is an unborn baby, it is also possible to have a burial. This really depends on how far the pregnancy was and how much you felt your baby already as a family member.

 If the person, who has died, is your spouse, it is a special situation. In the middle of all the grief you have to consider the legal issues. In a normal situation the spouse will inherit half of the estate, and the children the other half. But until everything is settled the joint bank account will be frozen. This waiting time may be very difficult right in the middle of all the emotional turmoil.
In your grief it is important that you are not left alone. Seek company of understanding people. Come to church. Bring your loss to others as a prayer matter. If you are a foreigner in Finland and the person who died was the one who was helping you and guiding you to live here, you certainly need to find a caring community to help you to start your life again. Christian community is called to help you.
Pastor Timo