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.

Keeping Your Pet’s Memory Alive in Everyday Life

Keeping Your Pet’s Memory Alive in Everyday Life

In the first days after a pet dies, memory can feel like a wave—beautiful, relentless, and exhausting all at once. You might catch yourself listening for familiar footsteps, reaching for...

Grieving a Pet While Caring for Surviving Animals: Balancing Their Needs and Yours

Grieving a Pet While Caring for Surviving Animals: Balancing Their Needs and Yours

The day a pet dies, the house doesn’t just get quieter—it changes shape. A water bowl still sits in its usual spot. A leash still hangs by the door. A...

From Foster to Forever in Your Heart: Grieving the Loss of a Foster Pet

From Foster to Forever in Your Heart: Grieving the Loss of a Foster Pet

There’s a particular kind of ache that comes with losing a foster pet—one that can feel oddly “out of place” in the world’s expectations. Your time together may have been...

Grieving the Loss of a Cat After Euthanasia: Letting Go of Blame and Regret

Grieving the Loss of a Cat After Euthanasia: Letting Go of Blame and Regret

The hardest part about saying goodbye to a cat is that so much of the relationship is quiet. Cats love in glances, in routines, in the soft weight of a...

How to Talk to Teens About the Death of a Pet Without Minimizing Their Grief

How to Talk to Teens About the Death of a Pet Without Minimizing Their Grief

When a pet dies, adults often expect the grief to look “simple”: a few hard days, a small ritual, a gradual return to normal. But teenagers can surprise you. A...

How to Support Kids When a Classroom Pet Dies

How to Support Kids When a Classroom Pet Dies

The day a classroom pet dies rarely looks dramatic from the outside. The fish doesn’t swim to the surface. The hamster doesn’t come out of its hide. A turtle stays...

How to Build a Support System After Pet Loss

How to Build a Support System After Pet Loss

There’s a particular kind of silence that follows pet loss. It isn’t only the absence of paws on the hallway floor or the familiar weight at the edge of the...

What Is the Dog’s Prayer Poem?

What Is the Dog’s Prayer Poem?

The connection between a dog and their human is a profound and irreplaceable bond, one that often defies explanation. It is a relationship built on unwavering loyalty, playful companionship, and...

Grieving a Friend: When Your Loss Feels Overlooked or Hard for Others to Understand

Grieving a Friend: When Your Loss Feels Overlooked or Hard for Others to Understand

If you have ever heard yourself say, “I know I’m not family, but this hurts like family,” you are not being dramatic. You are naming something many people live through...

The Physical Symptoms of Heartbreak: Can Pet Loss Make You Sick?

The Physical Symptoms of Heartbreak: Can Pet Loss Make You Sick?

The morning after your pet dies can feel unreal in a way that’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t lived it. The house is still. The routine is broken....

It’s Just a Cat: How to Handle Insensitive Comments from Friends

It’s Just a Cat: How to Handle Insensitive Comments from Friends

The comment rarely lands gently. You might be standing in the grocery store aisle, moving on autopilot because you ran out of coffee filters. You might be at work, answering...

Why Am I Not Crying? Processing Shock and Numbness

Why Am I Not Crying? Processing Shock and Numbness

The first thing many people notice after a pet dies isn’t a flood of tears. It’s the quiet. The house sounds different. The routine has a missing step. The leash...

Navigating Workplace Grief: Should You Take Bereavement Leave for a Pet?

Navigating Workplace Grief: Should You Take Bereavement Leave for a Pet?

The morning after a pet dies can feel strangely ordinary from the outside. The alarm still goes off. The calendar is still full. Emails still arrive with the same urgency...

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

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....

Dealing with Veterinary Malpractice: Grief Mixed with Anger

Dealing with Veterinary Malpractice: Grief Mixed with Anger

There are losses that arrive like a soft wave—sad, heavy, inevitable. And then there are losses that land like a collision: sudden, confusing, and threaded with the kind of anger...

The Burden of the Decision Maker: When One Spouse Decides and the Other Disagrees

The Burden of the Decision Maker: When One Spouse Decides and the Other Disagrees

There’s a particular kind of silence that can settle over a home after a pet euthanasia appointment. It isn’t only the quiet of missing paws on the floor or the...