If you've ever had a death in the family, you know the passing of a loved one can be a stressful, difficult time.

It can also bring up unexpected costs for the survivors.

There are a lot of costs associated with funerals and cremations. Ideally, those details are taken care of ahead of time.

But for one Valley family, their mother's last wish turned into a hard financial funeral lesson.

"A friend of mine used to call my mom "Momma Angel" and she was, she is," Jacqueline Greazzo said.

It's still hard for Greazzo to think about her mother, Rosalie Greazzo-Roy, who passed away late last year.

"She was very strong, hard working, very loving woman," Greazzo said.

Following the death, Greazzo and her family did what many family members do these days -- they placed personal items inside the casket.

For instance, Greazzo-Roy's favorite coffee cup, a few of her stuffed animals, some cigarettes, and finally an urn holding the ashes of her second husband, Frank, who passed away a year earlier.

"… We felt that these were her wishes and he should be with her," Greazzo said.

Greazzo says her family told Holy Cross Cemetery about what they had placed inside Greazzo-Roy's casket and she says there didn't seem to be a problem.

That is, until Holy Cross found out about that urn.

Greazzo says that's when Holy Cross added an extra $750 to the funeral bill.

"They told us what to pay and at that time we were mourning the loss of our mother and weren't thinking of dollar figures or really anything at that time," Greazzo said.

It was only after the funeral that Greazzo says her family reviewed the charges and felt that the $750 they paid wasn't right.

"No ground was dug up, no extra space was taken, and they charged us $750," Greazzo said.

Holy Cross Cemetery is owned by the Catholic Diocese, which didn't want to talk on camera about the extra $750 they charged.

In fact, even when 3 On Your Side tried to visit Greazzo-Roy's burial site as part of our investigation, we were told the cemetery was private property and ordered to leave.

A spokesman for the Catholic Diocese did send us a statement indicating that essentially two people had been buried not just one and that reflects the additional $750.

In a statement, he tells us, "Catholic cemeteries' charge for spaces is based on burial rights of human remains. This charge is applied whether it's for a full body burial or the burial of cremated remains."

Although it's common for the Catholic Church to charge for a "second burial right," many privately owned cemeteries say they would never charge to place the ashes of someone's remains inside the casket with a loved one.

Renee Corbelli is with Paradise Memorial Gardens in Scottsdale and says they often get requests to have a "second rite of burial," but they don't feel the need to charge an additional cost.

"We don't see a justification at all in adding an additional charge for that space," Corbelli said. "They've already paid for it. In our eyes we just can't see it."

Looking back now, Greazzo and her family say they could have kept quiet about the urn and probably saved some money, but then again they thought they were doing the right thing.

"If we had not said that we had the urn, there would be no cost, but we were up front and honest like my mother raised us to be," Greazzo said.

It's always good to ask questions, but in this particular case, the family thought $750 was a bit much and as we found out, many other cemeteries would not have charged anything extra.