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.

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...

When a Pet Goes Missing: Coping With Ambiguous Loss (Hope, Grief, and What to Do Next) - Funeral.com, Inc.

When a Pet Goes Missing: Coping With Ambiguous Loss (Hope, Grief, and What to Do Next)

When a pet disappears, your life can split into two tracks at once: the practical track where you make calls, post photos, and scan sidewalks for paw prints, and the...

Cenotaphs Explained: Memorializing a Loved One Without a Body (Especially in Green Burial Sites) - Funeral.com, Inc.

Cenotaphs Explained: Memorializing a Loved One Without a Body (Especially in Green Burial Sites)

There is a particular kind of silence that follows certain losses. Sometimes it comes after a cremation, when you have a temporary container on the counter and a calendar full...

Inheritance Conflict and Grief: Why Loss Can Turn Into “Greed” (and How Families De-Escalate) - Funeral.com, Inc.

Inheritance Conflict and Grief: Why Loss Can Turn Into “Greed” (and How Families De-Escalate)

There is a particular kind of silence that falls over a family after a death. It is not the quiet of peace. It is the quiet of people watching each...

Women and Grief: The “Kin-Keeper” Burden of Holding the Family Together While Hurting - Funeral.com, Inc.

Women and Grief: The “Kin-Keeper” Burden of Holding the Family Together While Hurting

There’s a moment after a death that many women recognize immediately. The room gets quiet, the calls start coming in, and somehow you become the person everyone looks to for...

Estrangement Grief: Mourning Someone You Didn’t Speak To (and the Guilt That Can Follow) - Funeral.com, Inc.

Estrangement Grief: Mourning Someone You Didn’t Speak To (and the Guilt That Can Follow)

When an estranged relative dies, the grief often arrives without a clean storyline. You may feel sadness and anger in the same hour. You may feel relief and then hate...

Ambiguous Loss Type 2 (Missing Persons): Living With Uncertainty When There’s No Confirmed Death - Funeral.com, Inc.

Ambiguous Loss Type 2 (Missing Persons): Living With Uncertainty When There’s No Confirmed Death

When someone you love is missing, your life can start to feel like it’s being lived in parentheses. You wake up each morning with the same unanswered question, and the...

Ambiguous Loss Type 1 (Dementia): Grieving Someone Who Is Physically Here but Psychologically Changing - Funeral.com, Inc.

Ambiguous Loss Type 1 (Dementia): Grieving Someone Who Is Physically Here but Psychologically Changing

There is a particular kind of heartbreak that doesn’t arrive with a single phone call or a single day you can point to and say, “That’s when everything changed.” With...

Grieving a Lost Pet (That Hasn't Died): The Pain of Rehoming or Runaways - Funeral.com, Inc.

Grieving a Lost Pet (That Hasn't Died): The Pain of Rehoming or Runaways

There’s a particular kind of heartbreak that doesn’t come with a “final moment.” No last breath. No goodbye you can prepare for. No clear place to set your grief down....