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.

Grief and Work Performance: Focus, Mistakes, and How to Talk with Your Boss

Grief and Work Performance: Focus, Mistakes, and How to Talk with Your Boss

There is a particular kind of emotional exhaustion that settles in when you return to work after a loss. You may be sitting in the same chair, opening the same...

What to Say to a Coworker Who Lost a Pet: Messages, Card Examples & Respectful Boundaries

What to Say to a Coworker Who Lost a Pet: Messages, Card Examples & Respectful Boundaries

There are losses people expect work to “understand”—a parent, a spouse, a child. And then there are losses that can feel strangely invisible in the workplace, even when they’re enormous...

Bereavement Leave and Workplace Policies: What You Can Ask For and How to Advocate for More Support

Bereavement Leave and Workplace Policies: What You Can Ask For and How to Advocate for More Support

The first work message after a death can feel impossible to write. You may be in shock, making family calls, and suddenly responsible for logistics that don’t wait—travel, paperwork, services....

Keeping Cremation Jewelry Private: Wearing Pet Ashes at Work, School, and in Public

Keeping Cremation Jewelry Private: Wearing Pet Ashes at Work, School, and in Public

There’s a specific kind of vulnerability that comes with returning to daily life after losing a pet. You may look composed on the outside while carrying something deeply sacred close...

Books to Help Toddlers Understand the Death of a Pet

Books to Help Toddlers Understand the Death of a Pet

When a pet dies, adults often feel two kinds of grief at once: the heartbreak of missing a beloved companion, and the ache of trying to explain something enormous to...

What To Say When Someone Loses a Pet: Texts, Cards & Workplace Scripts (And What Not To Say)

What To Say When Someone Loses a Pet: Texts, Cards & Workplace Scripts (And What Not To Say)

If you have ever stared at your phone after hearing “we had to say goodbye,” you already know the challenge: you care, you want to show up, and your mind...

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...

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...

Pet Loss and Workplace Compassion: How Employers Can Support Staff

Pet Loss and Workplace Compassion: How Employers Can Support Staff

When an employee returns to work after losing a pet, the grief often arrives quietly first. It shows up in small pauses over email, in a sudden need to step...

Bereavement Leave and Time Off Work After a Death: What Employees Should Know

Bereavement Leave and Time Off Work After a Death: What Employees Should Know

Experiencing a death in the family can make work feel both distant and urgent at the same time. Balancing funeral arrangements, paperwork, and family communications while managing job responsibilities often...

Compassion Fatigue and Pet Loss: When Rescuers and Shelter Workers Are Grieving

Compassion Fatigue and Pet Loss: When Rescuers and Shelter Workers Are Grieving

If you work in rescue, animal control, or a shelter, grief rarely comes as a single event. It arrives in waves—sick kittens who do not make it through the night,...

Pet Loss for Veterinary Staff and Techs: Grief Behind the Exam Room Door

Pet Loss for Veterinary Staff and Techs: Grief Behind the Exam Room Door

When a family walks into a clinic with a sick or aging pet, the room fills with visible emotion: tearful questions, anxious glances at the veterinarian, hands curled in fur....

Going Back to Work After a Death or Pet Loss: Managing Grief in a Workplace Setting

Going Back to Work After a Death or Pet Loss: Managing Grief in a Workplace Setting

Going back to work after someone you love has died—whether that is a parent, partner, friend, or a beloved pet—can feel like stepping onto a moving treadmill when you are...

Grief in the Workplace: How Managers and Coworkers Can Respond with Compassion

Grief in the Workplace: How Managers and Coworkers Can Respond with Compassion

Grief rarely waits for a convenient moment. It shows up in emails, video calls, empty desks, and quiet break rooms. As more families choose cremation and memorials unfold over weeks...