Mical is 32 and lives in Edinburgh. Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on her and her family. We have supported her throughout this and she has kindly agreed to share her story with us.

“Early March 2020 I woke up to the news that the company I worked for was going to close due to the pandemic. The redundancy was unexpected which left not only myself but the entire staff shocked. Two days later my Grandma who was 92 at the time contracted COVID-19 and passed away hours after arriving in the hospital. In less than 3 days I faced redundancy and the death of my lovely grandma. As a person who never really had to deal with such a situation in the past, I was completely clueless what the procedure was in terms of funeral arrangements. The country was on the verge of lockdown enforcements meaning that the standard funeral procedures were not an option. Not only that, due to the redundancy, I found myself in a troubled financial situation, not having a job and having to depend on Government help which isn’t that much. Because my Grandma was from abroad, she did not qualify for Government’s Social Security benefits.

I found out about Caledonian Cremation online. I remember phoning and speaking to a lovely bunch of staff who in all sincerity could not have been any more helpful or lovely. They agreed to cremate my grandmother using the family contributions I managed to pull together.

They took care of everything from start to finish, all we had to do was sign the documents and all the rest was taken care off. We decided to pick up my grandma’s ashes, but Caledonian Cremation can deliver it to your door if you prefer.

I would love to finish this review by saying that the rest of the year went on as normal. However, the truth is that in early August, my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Two months later after receiving the diagnosis, he also contracted COVID-19 and passed away. I could not believe that this was happening again especially after losing my grandma not too long ago. I didn’t hesitate to phone Caledonian Cremation again, being so impressed with their professionalism and caring nature, I just couldn’t trust anyone else to take care of my dad. Unlike the situation with my grandmother, my dad was a resident in the UK and qualified for social security benefit who paid for the entire funeral fee. It was relieved to know that this was an option for low income households.

At Caledonia Cremation, it’s way more than just a cremation service that I received. The staff would phone me and listen to me speak, cry and vent out, something that they weren’t being paid to do, but their loving kindness led the way to be a shoulder to cry on. People spend thousands of pounds on a funeral, sometimes only receiving a bog-standard service with little to no personal sympathy. Caledonia Cremation is not only extremely affordable; the service is simply first class.

I honestly don’t know what I would’ve done without Caledonia Cremation. I think that the only alternative would be to find myself in thousands of pounds of debt, and maybe try and arrange some sort of payment plan which could take a long time to clear, especially as I had been made redundant. With Caledonia Cremations, this was avoided and I have no debt to worry about.”