Services You Can Trust!

Anderson Patterson Cremation & Funeral Services is your trustworthy and ever-present friend. We are by your side when you need us most. Our experienced, trained and caring staff is here to guide you through the process of making the necessary arrangements when a loved one passes. Our focus is to give you peace of mind during this difficult time.

We understand the difficulties in losing someone dear to you.  Allow us to answer the important questions by providing you with the resources you will need to make informed decisions.  At Anderson-Patterson Cremation & Funeral Services, our goal is to take care of you and your family with compassion… something only felt in a family owned atmosphere.

We are honored to have been trusted by hundreds of families in Southwest Florida since 1972.  We have built our reputation on trust, attention to detail and affordability during a time when an unexpected life event can be emotionally and financially devastating.  Please call us today at 239-368-7080 and let us help you.

We, at Anderson-Patterson, understand that death is a subject that no one wants to think about or talk about. Unfortunately, we are all not going to live forever. Whether it be expected or unexpected, death does not discriminate.Walk through any cemetery and you will see all ages and stages of lives that were lived; some are short and some are long.As adults, we have a personal responsibility; not only for ourselves but also for those we leave behind.

ASK YOURSELF

• Who is responsible for my death decisions?
• What funeral home will they use?  
• How much will my funeral cost?
• How will my family pay for it?
• How do I protect my loved ones from over spending?
• What type of service do I want?
• Will my family respect my wishes?
• Where will my final resting place be?  

All of these questions must be answered at some point, whether it be before or after is up to you.

On average, a family must answer 50 questions when making arrangements for someone they have lost. Your family will have one opportunity to make these emotionally driven decisions. You can ease this burden by answering these questions ahead of time. Documentation under-funding assures that your wishes will be carried out.

REASONS TO PRE-PLAN

• You decide on the services – cremation or burial, direct or full service.
• You determine how much money will be spent.
• You lock in the prices.
• You choose a plan that’s best for you.
• You give your family peace of mind.
• You choose the funeral home that you can trust.

Pre-planning is a solid decision. Documentation and choosing a plan that fits your needs enables you to protect those that you love most. Don’t leave your family guessing. Ease their burden by pre-planning. During their time of sorrow,allow them to reflect and celebrate the life you lived; don’t leave them worrying about how they are going to pay for it!

When you pre-plan your end of life decisions for burial, cremation, or forwarding back home to another state or country, the Patterson’s and their funeral homes will be there when your family needs them most. You will find their dedicated staff making every effort to provide your family with the peace of mind that the right choices were made, monies were set aside, and that choosing their family owned and operated business was the right decision. “Our  family  serving  yours  since  1972”. Please visit our website at: www.AndersonPatterson.com .

For all your funeral and cremation needs in Southwest Florida, Fort Myers, Lehigh Acres, Cape Coral, Bonita Springs, Naples, Estero and surrounding areas – please call Anderson Patterson at 239-694-4121.

The Road to Happiness Part 1

Here at Anderson Patterson we believe life is too short to live unhappy lives. We see first hand so many unfortunate incidents of lives wasted in unnecessary pain, suffering and unhappy years. Our goal is to inspire you to live a rich, healthy and happy life so that when your time comes you leave this earth in a peaceful state knowing you have no regrets and you lived your best life. We’re always searching for the best advice to share with you and below is a little something we came across plus our own Happiness Tips added for your reading pleasure and life benefit.

1.       Express gratitude. – When you appreciate what you have, what you have appreciates in value.  Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?  So basically, being grateful for the goodness that is already evident in your life will bring you a deeper sense of happiness.  And that’s without having to go out and buy anything.  It makes sense.  We’re gonna have a hard time ever being happy if we aren’t thankful for what we already have.  Happiness TIP: Take a moment out of every day to count your blessings and feel grateful for everything you already have!

2.      Cultivate optimism. – Winners have the ability to manufacture their own optimism.  No matter what the situation, the successful man or woman is the one who will always find a way to put an optimistic spin on it.  She or he knows failure only as an opportunity to grow and learn a new lesson from life.  People who think optimistically see the world as a place packed with endless opportunities, especially in trying times.  Happiness Tip: Place positive affirmations on post-it notes in and arround your living/working space to remind you to look at life from a positive perspective always.

3.      Avoid over-thinking and social comparison. – Comparing yourself to someone else can be poisonous.  If we’re somehow ‘better’ than the person that we’re comparing ourselves to, it gives us an unhealthy sense of superiority.  Our ego inflates – and nothing good can come of this – our not so likeable side comes out!  If we’re ‘worse’ than the person that we’re comparing ourselves to, we usually discredit the hard work that we’ve done and dismiss all the progress that we’ve made.  I believe that the majority of the time this type of social comparison doesn’t stem from a healthy place.  If you feel called to compare yourself to something, compare yourself to an older version of yourself. Happiness Tip: Make it a personal point to strive to be better than who you were yesterday, last week, last month or last year – never focus on being better than anyone else.

We have More Happiness Advice and Tipscoming in future blogs so please stay tuned. Subscribe now if you haven’t already done so to insure you don’t miss out on any of our blogs.

Anderson Patterson Cremation & Funeral Services is your trustworthy and ever-present friend. We are by your side when you need us most. Our experienced, trained and caring staff is here to guide you through the process of making the necessary arrangements when a loved one passes. Our focus is to give you peace of mind during this difficult time.

Anderson Patterson Cremation and Funeral Services is here to help you find Peace of Mind today knowing you have taken care of all of the important details ahead of time. We have experts waiting to answer all of your questions and help you pre-plan your funeral. Please feel free to contact us at (239) 694-4121 or (239) 368-7080 or visit our website at www.AndersonPatterson.com.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Anderson Patterson!

Wishing you and yours a Very Happy Valentine’s Day!

On this beautiful day of friendship and love we want to take a moment to send you our love, blessings and well wishes. We love to be of service and help others during their most difficult time of need. We also love being an inspiration and uplifting people in a positive way. We appreciate your preference and friendship over the years.

Today we hope your day is full of love, laughter and all good things!

Happy Valentine’s Day from our family to yours!

Angela Patterson.

Anderson-Patterson Cremation & Funeral Services

Angela@AndersonPatterson.com

www.AndersonPatterson.com

Are you Better or Bitter?

Life is a funny thing and I mean that literally. Sometimes you just have to take a step back and laugh at it otherwise you might find yourself crying. Not that crying is a bad thing because I believe it to be very therapeutic. They say that tears wash away the burdens from your soul. If that’s the case then everyone should do a little crying every now and again, just to release the accumulated suffering of the years and lighten their load. The only bad thing about crying is that sometimes when you get started, it’s pretty darn hard to stop!

I once heard a man say “Life is easy. The difficult part is knowing how to live it.” It took me a minute and I had to think about it. Life really is simple and much easier than we think. The truth is that we complicate things much more than we should with our needless and never-ending stress and worrying. Somehow along the way from childhood to the present moment we got it stuck in our heads that life should happen this way or that way. Someone told us that we needed to make a “LIFE PLAN” and then they convinced us to follow it and make it happen. Then someone else came and told us that if our plan didn’t work out the first time around – well that was a bad thing and we should be upset about it. Then another person came along and told us we should be angry about it or even depressed. But honestly, those were all lies!

The truth is that we actually control very little in life. We can’t control the weather, our spouse, our family members, our neighbors, our boss or even our car. If it’s going to rain it will, so just grab an umbrella. If your wife or husband is going to get upset, they will be… so just try your best to be kind, compassionate and patient until it passes. The truth is that sometimes family is like the sun, the further away the better… but you gotta love them anyway, they are family and always will be. We don’t always have the nicest of neighbors so do your best to get along or put up a taller fence. Our bosses are human too and they will have bad, grumpy or outright ugly days, just take a deep breath and learn to pray for 5 o’clock! And the car will break down when it breaks down so just be sure to have a little money set aside for those life “emergencies” and have the tow truck and a good mechanic on speed dial. You can’t control any of those external circumstances in your life. You can only control your reactions to them. There will be days when you will get all red lights when you’re running late, it happens! Just turn on some happy music and laugh at the moment because getting angry isn’t going to turn the lights green nor will it get the bad driver out from in front of you.

They say Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you react to it. If we stop to think about it, those are some seriously important numbers! The empowering part of all of this is that once we understand we actually have a choice – we can chose a better life simply by controlling our reactions to life’s circumstances! Believe me when I say the saddest thing in my line of work is to see a person’s life come to and end and hear that they were filled with anger, bitterness and unhappiness. Instead of dying surrounded by their loved ones, they died alone because the bitterness never allowed anyone come near them. And once you’re dead, you’re dead… there is no taking it back or undoing it. It’s just too late! Today you have a choice, will you make things better or worse? Will you let life make you a better person or a bitter person? Things will not always be easy and they certainly won’t always go your way. But when you learn to accept that they don’t have to and you can be happy anyway – then you will really start to enjoy life!

Anderson Patterson Cremation and Funeral Services is here to help you find Peace of Mind today knowing you have taken care of all of the important details ahead of time. We have experts waiting to answer all of your questions and help you pre-plan your funeral. Please feel free to contact us at (239) 694-4121 or (239) 368-7080 or visit our website at www.AndersonPatterson.com.

Where did the time go?

Can you believe we’ve come to the end of the year already!? 2011 is over and where did it go? Remember back when we were kids and the days seems to last forever and the years were simply never-ending? When did all that change? Remember when turning 15 was a lifetime  goal and we couldn’t wait to drive? We had all the time in the world to play with friends, have picnics in the park and not a care in the world! Joy was something we felt every day for no particular reason at all. The sun was out, that was a reason to be happy! We’d find a quarter on the play ground and that was a reason to be happy! The ice cream truck drove down our street and that was cause for jumping up for joy and entertaining sheer bliss!

We couldn’t wait to grow up, fall in love and live in a big beautiful house with a white picket fence! Who didn’t dream of having “your own” money and making your own rules! We planned out our future vacation, the jobs we’d have and even the number of kids we wanted to call our own! Ah, if we could just go back in time and sit for an hour with that younger self we’d have so much wonderful advice to tell that beautiful, innocent child! There was so much we didn’t know, so much we were oblivious to… so much growing up to do! I think the first thing that I’d tell that younger self is: “Slow down and enjoy every minute of this age because it gets more challenging as you get older. Stay young, stay happy and don’t worry, it will all work out in the end!”

So do you ever wonder why we had to grow up? We does life have to be so serious? Why does it have to hurt? Why can’t we have those blissful happy moments for no reason at all? Well, I think we can! I strongly believe that we can take a trip down memory lane and remember what it was like to not worry about tomorrow and just enjoy this moment, right here, right now! I’m not saying that we should live in the past or be irresponsible or careless with our time. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t plan for the future or live wisely. I’m not saying we should all be carefree and childish, although I do believe that some of our childhood traits could benefit us today. Think about how forgiving we were, how carefree and worry free we lived. I think we had more faith because we hadn’t yet learned otherwise!

I believe that it is possible to take the necessary steps to create a good, sound and happy life for ourselves and then STOP worrying about it. If we embrace faith and walk in the direction of our goals we can reach them without stressing out over them, every minute of every day. We could avoid illness and disease if we worried less and enjoyed more. Look, the last time I checked happy people find success sooner than unhappy people do simply because they are actually looking for opportunities instead of focusing on the shortcomings in life. Yes there are things that are unavoidable, undesirable and out of our control – but is worrying about them going to fix them? No!

I believe this New Year brings the opportunity for a fresh start. If we choose to embrace faith more, enjoy the little things in life, worry less, stress less and count our blessings I believe we can get back some of that childhood bliss that made life such a wonderful experience.  Maybe it’s taking a walk on the beach, stopping to get an ice cream cone on the way home from work, playing a game of monopoly deal with the kids or just doing nothing for an afternoon! This New Year I invite you to change your perspective a little, give yourself permission to be silly, dance in your living room and just enjoy this moment a little longer! Have more faith my friend, things usually work themselves out in the end!

Anderson Patterson Cremation and Funeral Services is here to help you find Peace of Mind today knowing you have taken care of all of the important details ahead of time. We have experts waiting to answer all of your questions and help you pre-plan your funeral. Please feel free to contact us at (239) 694-4121 or (239) 368-7080 or visit our website at www.AndersonPatterson.com.

Happy New Year! from Anderson Patterson

Wishing you Prosperity, Peace and Joy this New Year!

The New Year brings the opportunity for a fresh start and all good things. We hope this New Year brings you much prosperity, joy and happiness! We are honored to be your faithful companion during the most difficult moments and we appreciate the opportunity to serve you. May your days be blessed with good friends, loving family and happy memories!

Happy New Year from our family to yours!

Happy Holiday’s from Anderson Patterson

Wishing you Peace, Joy and Love this Holiday Season!

During this beautiful and special time of the year we extend our gratitude to you for your continued preference over the years. We are honored to be your faithful companion during the most difficult moments and we appreciate the opportunity to serve you. We send you warm wishes this Holiday Season! May your days be blessed with good friends, loving family and happy memories!

Happy Holidays from our family to yours!