The Funeral.com Journal

Resources to help you create tributes as unique as the people (and pets) you love. Learn how engraving, photos, colors, and symbols add meaning; discover scattering rituals and at-home memorial ideas. We focus on the details that matter—because small choices can carry a lifetime of comfort.

Eternal Reef Balls: Turning Ashes Into Coral Habitat (How Memorial Reefs Work)

Eternal Reef Balls: Turning Ashes Into Coral Habitat (How Memorial Reefs Work)

The first time a family asks about an ocean memorial, it often starts the same way: with a container on a kitchen table and a question that feels too big...

Sky Burials Explained: Understanding the Tibetan Tradition and Why It’s Rare Elsewhere

Sky Burials Explained: Understanding the Tibetan Tradition and Why It’s Rare Elsewhere

The first time most people hear the phrase sky burial, it can land with a mix of curiosity and discomfort. That reaction is understandable—especially if you were raised around cemeteries,...

Ghana’s Fantasy Coffins: Meaning, Craftsmanship, and Sustainability Questions

Ghana’s Fantasy Coffins: Meaning, Craftsmanship, and Sustainability Questions

It can start with a single photo: an airplane-shaped coffin painted the bright blue of a clear sky, or a giant fish with shimmering scales, or a cocoa pod, or...

Grieving Without a Body: Coping When Someone Is Missing or No Remains Are Recovered

Grieving Without a Body: Coping When Someone Is Missing or No Remains Are Recovered

There are losses that arrive with a doorbell, a hospital room, a final phone call. And then there are losses that arrive like fog. Someone is here, and then they...

Faith and Grief: When Belief Comforts (and When It Becomes a Struggle) Description:

Faith and Grief: When Belief Comforts (and When It Becomes a Struggle) Description:

In the first hours after a death, faith can feel like a handrail. Sometimes it’s a familiar prayer spoken without thinking, or a hymn that rises in your chest before...

Grieving a Grandchild: The Double Heartbreak of Child Loss for Grandparents

Grieving a Grandchild: The Double Heartbreak of Child Loss for Grandparents

There are losses we expect to face as we age—friends, siblings, even parents if we’re among the last living in a generation. A grandchild’s death shatters that quiet expectation. It...

Online vs In-Person Grief Support: Pros, Cons, and How to Choose What Fits You

Online vs In-Person Grief Support: Pros, Cons, and How to Choose What Fits You

In the first days after a death, the world can feel too loud and too quiet at the same time. Your phone keeps lighting up, yet the house can feel...

Traumatic Loss and PTSD: When Trauma Complicates Grief and What Kind of Help Works

Traumatic Loss and PTSD: When Trauma Complicates Grief and What Kind of Help Works

Some losses break the world in two. A fatal accident. A homicide. An overdose. A sudden medical crisis that leaves you replaying the last minutes on a loop. Even when...

Planning a Memorial Walk/Run or Sports Tournament: An Annual Tribute That Builds Community

Planning a Memorial Walk/Run or Sports Tournament: An Annual Tribute That Builds Community

A memorial event starts the way so many meaningful things do: with a small group of people realizing they miss someone in the same place, on the same calendar day,...

Augmented Reality Memorials: Using AR to Share Life Stories at Gravesites (and What’s Next)

Augmented Reality Memorials: Using AR to Share Life Stories at Gravesites (and What’s Next)

There are places that hold a kind of silence you can feel. A cemetery in late afternoon. A small family plot where the ground is still new. A veteran’s section...

Firearms in an Estate (2026): Legal Basics for Transferring or Selling Guns After Someone Dies

Firearms in an Estate (2026): Legal Basics for Transferring or Selling Guns After Someone Dies

In the first days after someone dies, families are often trying to do two hard things at once: grieve and protect what needs protecting. A wallet, a set of keys,...

Autopsy Reports and Death Certificates: How to Request Them and What They Can Reveal

Autopsy Reports and Death Certificates: How to Request Them and What They Can Reveal

In the first days after a death, paperwork can feel like an added weight on top of grief. Families are often trying to do two things at once: make decisions...

Recruiting Millennials and Gen Z Into Funeral Careers: Modernizing the Image of Deathcare Work

Recruiting Millennials and Gen Z Into Funeral Careers: Modernizing the Image of Deathcare Work

On the surface, funeral service can look like an industry that never changes—quiet buildings, careful rituals, established roles. But if you work in deathcare, you know the truth: families have...

Shroud Burial: How Burial Without a Casket Works (and What to Know About Wrapping and Rules)

Shroud Burial: How Burial Without a Casket Works (and What to Know About Wrapping and Rules)

Most families don’t start funeral planning thinking, “Maybe we won’t use a casket.” They start with something simpler and more human: the wish to do right by someone they love....

Open-Air Funeral Pyres: Where They’re Allowed, How Permits Work, and Cultural Context (2026)

Open-Air Funeral Pyres: Where They’re Allowed, How Permits Work, and Cultural Context (2026)

Sometimes a family’s questions arrive quietly, almost like they’re testing whether it’s “okay” to ask. Someone will say they’ve seen an open-air cremation in a documentary, or they’ve attended a...

The Mushroom Burial Suit: How It Works, What the Science Says, and Typical Costs

The Mushroom Burial Suit: How It Works, What the Science Says, and Typical Costs

If you’ve ever found yourself searching late at night for a greener way to say goodbye—something that feels gentle, meaningful, and less industrial than what you imagined funerals had to...