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.

What Happens If Someone Dies Without Instructions? A Calm Decision Framework - Funeral.com, Inc.

What Happens If Someone Dies Without Instructions? A Calm Decision Framework

When someone dies without leaving clear instructions, families often describe the same feeling: grief is already loud, and now there’s a second kind of pressure—decisions, timelines, opinions, paperwork, and the...

Cumulative Grief: Coping With Multiple Losses and Bereavement Overload - Funeral.com, Inc.

Cumulative Grief: Coping With Multiple Losses and Bereavement Overload

Sometimes grief doesn’t arrive as a single storm. It arrives as weather that never fully clears. One loss, then another. A death, then a medical decline, then a breakup, then...

Art Therapy for Grief and Trauma: Nonverbal Ways to Process What Words Can’t - Funeral.com, Inc.

Art Therapy for Grief and Trauma: Nonverbal Ways to Process What Words Can’t

When loss is overwhelming, sometimes words feel too fragile to carry the weight of what you are feeling. Whether you are processing the death of a loved one, the end...

Right-Brain Journaling for Grief: Collage, Sketching, and Visual Storytelling - Funeral.com, Inc.

Right-Brain Journaling for Grief: Collage, Sketching, and Visual Storytelling

Grief can make language feel slippery. You may know you are heartbroken, but the words won’t line up neatly enough to explain it to anyone else, or even to yourself....

Left-Brain Journaling for Grief: Lists, Bullet Points, and Structure When You Feel Scattered - Funeral.com, Inc.

Left-Brain Journaling for Grief: Lists, Bullet Points, and Structure When You Feel Scattered

Grief has a way of making simple things feel strangely hard. You can care deeply, love deeply, and still stare at a sink full of dishes or a phone full...

4-7-8 Breathing for Panic and Grief Surges: How It Works and How to Practice Safely - Funeral.com, Inc.

4-7-8 Breathing for Panic and Grief Surges: How It Works and How to Practice Safely

Grief doesn’t always arrive as a single, steady emotion. For many people, it comes in waves—quiet mornings followed by sudden surges in the grocery store aisle, or a calm afternoon...

Grief Yoga: Gentle Poses for Grounding, Chest Opening, and Releasing Tension - Funeral.com, Inc.

Grief Yoga: Gentle Poses for Grounding, Chest Opening, and Releasing Tension

Grief can make the simplest moments feel unfamiliar. You might notice it first in your chest, as if your breath can’t quite drop all the way in. Or in your...

Music Therapy for Grief: How to Use Playlists for Emotional Release and Comfort - Funeral.com, Inc.

Music Therapy for Grief: How to Use Playlists for Emotional Release and Comfort

Grief has a strange way of making ordinary moments feel unfamiliar. You can be driving to the grocery store and suddenly realize you are holding your breath. You can sit...

CBT for Grief: Reframing Guilt, “If Only” Thoughts, and Fear After a Death - Funeral.com, Inc.

CBT for Grief: Reframing Guilt, “If Only” Thoughts, and Fear After a Death

Grief has a way of turning ordinary thoughts into courtroom arguments. You replay the last conversation. You rewrite the day things changed. You interrogate yourself with questions that have no...

Grief and Your Gut: The Gut–Brain Axis Behind Nausea, Appetite Changes, and IBS Flares - Funeral.com, Inc.

Grief and Your Gut: The Gut–Brain Axis Behind Nausea, Appetite Changes, and IBS Flares

After a loss, many people are surprised by how quickly grief shows up in the body. You might feel “fine” emotionally for an hour, and then your stomach tightens, food...

Cortisol and Grief: Why Loss Can Make You Physically Sick (and What Helps) - Funeral.com, Inc.

Cortisol and Grief: Why Loss Can Make You Physically Sick (and What Helps)

If you’ve ever said, “I feel like I’m coming down with something,” and meant grief, you are not alone. Loss can land in the body with a force that surprises...

Grief Insomnia: The Physiology of Sleeplessness After Loss and How to Cope at Night - Funeral.com, Inc.

Grief Insomnia: The Physiology of Sleeplessness After Loss and How to Cope at Night

If you are dealing with grief insomnia, you are not imagining it, and you are not “doing grief wrong.” After a death, many people describe the same pattern: you climb...

Broken Heart Syndrome (Takotsubo): Symptoms, Causes, and When to Seek Emergency Care - Funeral.com, Inc.

Broken Heart Syndrome (Takotsubo): Symptoms, Causes, and When to Seek Emergency Care

Grief is often described as emotional, but many families first meet it in the body. It can show up as a tight throat, a hollow stomach, a racing mind at...

The Grief Brain: The Neuroscience Behind Brain Fog, Memory Gaps, and Feeling “Not Like Yourself” - Funeral.com, Inc.

The Grief Brain: The Neuroscience Behind Brain Fog, Memory Gaps, and Feeling “Not Like Yourself”

After a death, people often tell themselves they should be able to “handle the basics” and keep moving. Then something small happens—you walk into a room and forget why, you...

Explaining Death to Autistic Children: Concrete Language, Predictability, and Emotional Safety - Funeral.com, Inc.

Explaining Death to Autistic Children: Concrete Language, Predictability, and Emotional Safety

If you are searching for how to explain death to an autistic child, it is usually because you are trying to do two hard things at once: you are grieving,...

Grief Masking: The Exhaustion of Hiding Pain and Performing “Okay” - Funeral.com, Inc.

Grief Masking: The Exhaustion of Hiding Pain and Performing “Okay”

There is a particular kind of tired that shows up after a death that has nothing to do with sleep. It is the fatigue of holding your face in the...