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 to Do When a Loved One Wanted “No Funeral”: Meaningful Options

What to Do When a Loved One Wanted “No Funeral”: Meaningful Options

Hearing “no funeral” can land like a closed door at the exact moment you most need a place to stand. For many families, it also brings a second wave of...

Planning When There Are Two Communities: Merging Without Stress

Planning When There Are Two Communities: Merging Without Stress

When someone dies, most families brace for grief. What often surprises people is the second layer: community. There may be close relatives who need familiar rituals, friends who want something...

What to Do With Mail After a Death: Practical Steps That Reduce Stress

What to Do With Mail After a Death: Practical Steps That Reduce Stress

In the days after a death, families often expect the hardest part to be the funeral itself. But what tends to linger—quietly, stubbornly—is the mail. It arrives whether you feel...

What to Tell the Executor About Ashes: The Key Points to Document

What to Tell the Executor About Ashes: The Key Points to Document

Ashes can become a source of family tension for one quiet reason: they don’t come with an obvious “next step.” A death certificate has a filing process. A bank account...

Managing Belongings After a Death: A Gentle Sorting Method

Managing Belongings After a Death: A Gentle Sorting Method

In the days after a death, people often expect the hardest part to be the ceremony. Then the casseroles stop arriving, the calls quiet down, and you find yourself standing...

Autopsy and Cremation: How Timing Can Change

Autopsy and Cremation: How Timing Can Change

In the first hours after a death, families often find themselves holding two realities at once: grief, and a clock they didn’t ask for. You may have expected that cremation...

Personal Belongings and Cremation: What Can Be Returned and When

Personal Belongings and Cremation: What Can Be Returned and When

After a death, families often find themselves asking questions that sound practical but feel deeply emotional: Where is the wedding ring? Did the hospital send the watch? Will the necklace...

Can You Swim in Ash Jewelry? Salt, Chlorine, and Practical Guidance

Can You Swim in Ash Jewelry? Salt, Chlorine, and Practical Guidance

If you’re wearing cremation jewelry—especially an ashes pendant that holds a tiny portion of someone you love—the question “Can I swim in this?” is not really about water. It’s about...

How to Decline Speaking at a Memorial Kindly: Sample Wording

How to Decline Speaking at a Memorial Kindly: Sample Wording

There are few requests that land as heavily as this one: “Would you say a few words at the memorial?” Even when it’s asked gently, your body can react as...

How to Ask for Donations Instead of Flowers: Clear, Respectful Language

How to Ask for Donations Instead of Flowers: Clear, Respectful Language

When you’re planning a funeral or memorial, the question of flowers can feel deceptively loaded. Flowers are a long-standing way people show up. They’re beautiful, they signal care, and they...

Pet Urn Sizing Without Guessing: A Practical Approach

Pet Urn Sizing Without Guessing: A Practical Approach

Losing a pet creates a strange kind of quiet. The house feels different, your routines suddenly have gaps, and then—often sooner than you expect—you’re asked to make a decision that...

Stillbirth Memory-Making: Hospital Photography, Handprints, and Keepsakes That Matter

Stillbirth Memory-Making: Hospital Photography, Handprints, and Keepsakes That Matter

After a stillbirth, time can feel distorted. Hours move too fast and not fast enough, and the world outside your room can seem impossibly ordinary while you are living through...

Understanding Funeral Home Price Lists: A Plain-English Reading Guide

Understanding Funeral Home Price Lists: A Plain-English Reading Guide

The hardest part about funeral pricing is that it often shows up when you’re least prepared to do math. You’re tired, you’re trying to make decisions with other family members...

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

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,...

Black Armbands in Mourning: Where the Symbol Came From and How It’s Used Today

Black Armbands in Mourning: Where the Symbol Came From and How It’s Used Today

There are moments in grief when words feel too sharp for what you’re carrying. You may not want to explain anything, and you may not want attention, but you also...

Autistic Burnout vs Grief Depression: How to Tell What’s Happening and When to Get Help

Autistic Burnout vs Grief Depression: How to Tell What’s Happening and When to Get Help

After a death, it can feel like your body and brain stop cooperating. You might be sleeping ten hours and still waking up tired. You might stop replying to texts....