The moment you learn that someone you love has died by suicide, time can feel split in two. There is the world “before,” and then the surreal blur that follows: phone calls, police or medical questions, family members asking what happened, and the heavy, aching silence that settles in between. If you are reading this as a suicide loss survivor, your mind may be swinging between shock, disbelief, guilt, anger, and a deep protective instinct for the rest of your family. At the same time, you may be facing urgent funeral planning decisions, including whether to choose cremation, what kind of service to hold, and how much detail to share in conversations, on social media, or in an obituary.
This guide is meant to sit beside you in that complicated place. It will not judge your feelings, and it will not rush you. Instead, it offers compassionate suggestions for language, memorial options such as cremation urns for ashes and cremation jewelry, and support resources that understand suicide grief as its own, very specific experience. Above all, it rests on one core truth: you did not cause this death, and you are not alone in trying to live with it.
A Note on Safety: If You or Someone Else Is at Risk
Before anything else, it’s important to say this clearly: if you are feeling so overwhelmed by grief, guilt, or shame that you’re thinking about harming yourself, you deserve immediate support.
In the United States, you can contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling, texting, or chatting “988” for free, confidential help 24/7. If you are outside the U.S., websites like Find A Helpline can point you to crisis lines in your country.
Organizations such as the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and the Alliance of Hope for Suicide Loss Survivors offer specialized resources, education, and community for people who have lost someone to suicide. Reaching out to these services is not a sign of weakness; it is a way of honoring your own life in the middle of a devastating loss.
Suicide Loss Is Different: Shock, Stigma, and “Why?”
Many grief experiences are painful, but a death by suicide often brings an added layer of trauma and stigma. You may feel a physical jolt in your body when you remember the phone call or the moment you were told. You might replay the last conversation you had with them, wondering if you missed something. It is common for suicide loss survivors to cycle through questions like:
- “Why didn’t I see it?”
- “Why didn’t they come to me?”
- “Was it something I said or didn’t say?”
Mental health advocates remind us that suicide is usually the end point of a complex mix of factors—mental illness, trauma, biology, stressors, and sometimes access to lethal means—not a simple result of one event or one person’s actions. Knowing that may not erase the “what ifs” in your mind, but it can provide a softer frame: your loved one was struggling with something bigger than you, bigger than any single conversation.
It can also help to remember that grief after suicide is often described as “loss plus trauma plus questions.” Your body may feel jumpy or numb; you may have trouble sleeping, concentrating, or remembering things. Journaling, trauma-informed therapy, and specialized suicide loss support groups can give you more space than everyday life allows to process both the love and the shock.
Gentle Language for Talking About Suicide
One of the first practical challenges families face is how to talk about what happened. The words we use around suicide can either deepen shame or quietly push back against it.
Many families now prefer phrases like “died by suicide” or “died after a long struggle with depression/anxiety/a mental illness,” instead of older language like “committed suicide,” which can sound like a crime or moral failing. Mental health organizations and suicide prevention advocates also favor the “died by suicide” phrasing for this reason.
You might find it helpful to choose one or two simple, truthful phrases that you can repeat when you are too tired to improvise. For example:
- “He died by suicide after a long struggle with depression.”
- “She died suddenly; it was a suicide, and we’re still processing the shock.”
- “They died by suicide. We’re focusing on keeping everyone safe and supported right now.”
You are allowed to keep the explanation short. You are allowed to say, “I don’t want to go into details, but I’m grateful you care.”
Explaining Suicide to Children and Teens
Children and teenagers hear more than we think. They notice whispers, tense phone calls, and closed doors. When adults try to “protect” them by hiding the truth, kids often create their own explanations—which can be far scarier or more self-blaming than reality.
For younger children, simple, concrete language usually works best: “Daddy died. He died by suicide, which means he hurt his own body so badly that it stopped working. He was very, very sick on the inside, in his thoughts and feelings. It is never a child’s fault when this happens.”
With older children and teens, you can gradually add more context, while still emphasizing that mental health struggles are illnesses, not character flaws, and that help is always available. You might also talk explicitly about safety concerns for other family members, such as how to ask for help if they ever feel hopeless or have thoughts of self-harm. Connecting them with a trauma-informed therapist—someone experienced specifically in suicide loss—can create a safe space to ask questions they don’t want to bring to you yet.
Funerals and Cremation Decisions After a Death by Suicide
Alongside emotional shock, many families must make quick decisions about services, burial or cremation, and what will happen to the body and ashes. In recent years, cremation has become the most common choice in the United States. According to the National Funeral Directors Association, the 2025 U.S. cremation rate is projected to be 63.4%, while the burial rate is projected at 31.6%. The Cremation Association of North America reports a similar trend, noting that the U.S. cremation rate reached about 61.8% in 2024 and continues to rise.
Families often choose cremation because it offers flexibility and, in many cases, lower cost. The NFDA’s 2025 data shows that the median cost of a funeral with viewing and burial in 2023 was $8,300, while the median for a funeral with cremation was $6,280. If you are asking yourself how much does cremation cost, Funeral.com’s guide How Much Does Cremation Cost? Average Prices and Budget-Friendly Options offers clear ranges and suggestions for prioritizing what matters most.
After a death by suicide, these same decisions come wrapped in extra emotion. You might worry that an open casket will bring up questions you aren’t ready to answer, or that a large public service will invite gossip. It is perfectly acceptable to choose a smaller or more private gathering, or to delay a public memorial until you feel steadier. There is no single “right” way to say goodbye.
Choosing an Urn or Memorial That Feels Gentle, Not Graphic
If you choose cremation, the question quickly becomes what to do with ashes. For many suicide loss survivors, the idea of ashes can feel both comforting and overwhelming. A carefully chosen urn or piece of jewelry can shift the focus away from the circumstances of the death and toward the person’s whole life—who they were, what they loved, the stories you want to carry forward.
Funeral.com’s Cremation Urns for Ashes collection includes classic metal, ceramic, glass, and wood designs in many sizes, with options for engraving and symbols that speak to your loved one’s personality. Families who prefer a more subtle presence in the home sometimes choose small cremation urns, such as those in the Small Cremation Urns for Ashes collection, or select keepsake urns that hold only a portion of the ashes and can be shared among relatives.
If you are drawn to keeping ashes at home, Funeral.com’s article Keeping Ashes at Home: How to Do It Safely, Respectfully, and Legally walks through placement, safety, and family communication so that a home memorial feels like a shared, thoughtful choice rather than a source of tension.
Some families feel comforted by cremation jewelry and cremation necklaces—tiny, wearable urns that hold a symbolic amount of ashes or another keepsake, like dried funeral flowers. Funeral.com’s Cremation Jewelry and Cremation Necklaces collections, along with the Journal article Cremation Jewelry 101: What It Is, How It’s Made, and Who It’s Right For, can help you explore whether a small, private keepsake feels right for you.
If your loved one felt connected to the ocean or rivers, you might eventually consider a scattering or water burial ceremony. Funeral.com’s guide Understanding What Happens During a Water Burial Ceremony explains how these ceremonies work and what kinds of urns are suitable. You do not have to make this decision immediately; many families keep ashes at home or in a niche until they feel ready to plan something more public.
Obituaries, Social Media, and How Much to Share
One of the hardest practical questions after a suicide is how much detail to include in an obituary, on social media, or in conversations with your wider community. There is no single correct answer, and different branches of the family may feel differently.
Some families choose to be direct: “Alex Johnson, 42, died by suicide on [date], after a long and courageous struggle with depression.”
Others use softer phrasing such as “died suddenly” or “died unexpectedly,” and share more specifics only with close friends and relatives. When deciding how much to say, it may help to ask:
- What would feel respectful to who they were, not just how they died?
- What information would protect vulnerable people (for example, avoiding graphic descriptions or details about methods)?
- What do I need in order to feel that I am not hiding in shame, but also not exposing myself to more questions than I can handle?
Funeral homes and grief counselors are seeing more families include mental health language in obituaries and eulogies, naming depression or anxiety much the way they would cancer or heart disease. This can be a powerful way to combat stigma around suicide while also encouraging others to seek help earlier. If you feel drawn to that approach, you might pair it with a note about donations to a mental health or suicide prevention organization.
Support Beyond Family: Groups, Therapists, and Online Communities
Because suicide grief is so layered, many survivors find that general bereavement groups do not fully address their specific needs. Specialized suicide loss support groups—whether in person or online—can provide a place where you do not have to explain why you feel both love and anger, or why you are still having intrusive images months later.
The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention maintains resources and programs for people who have lost someone to suicide, including its “Healing Conversations” and support group listings. The Alliance of Hope for Suicide Loss Survivors offers moderated online forums and educational content written by and for survivors. Many states and regions maintain their own directories of support groups and grief resources for suicide loss survivors.
A trauma-informed therapist—someone trained in both grief and trauma—can help you work through the specific ways suicide loss shows up in your body and mind: flashbacks, avoidance, panic when the phone rings, or difficulty trusting your own judgment. While therapy cannot erase what happened, it can help you rebuild a sense of safety and meaning, one piece at a time.
Online communities, when well-moderated and grounded in compassion, can also be a lifeline, especially late at night when local resources are closed. As with any online space, it’s wise to choose groups that have clear rules against graphic details and that encourage reaching out for professional help when needed.
Children, Teens, and Safety After Suicide Loss
After a suicide, adults often become hypervigilant about the safety of other family members—especially teenagers or relatives who also struggle with mental health. This concern is understandable and, in many ways, wise. At the same time, it is important not to treat loved ones as problems to be solved, but as people who deserve honest conversation and support.
For teens, inviting them into ritual choices can be particularly helpful. Letting them help pick photos for a slideshow, choose a favorite song for the service, or select a small keepsake urn or piece of cremation jewelry for themselves can help them feel included rather than pushed to the side. Funeral.com’s Journal articles—such as How to Choose a Cremation Urn That Actually Fits Your Plans (Home, Burial, Scattering, Travel) and Memory Boxes and Keepsake Ideas: What to Save When You Don’t Want a Big Urn—offer gentle ideas you can adapt together.
You can also be explicit about safety: “If you ever feel hopeless, or if you ever think about hurting yourself, I want you to tell me or another adult right away. We will never be mad at you for having those feelings. We will just want to help you stay safe.”
Keeping crisis numbers—such as 988 in the U.S.—visible on the fridge or in your teen’s phone, and encouraging them to share those numbers with friends, turns the loss you’ve endured into a commitment to protect others.
Honoring the Whole Life, Not Just the Way They Died
One of the deepest fears after a suicide is that the manner of death will “replace” everything else in people’s memories. It can feel, at times, as if your loved one has been reduced to a headline or a cautionary tale.
Memorial rituals and physical objects can help push back against that flattening. A favorite photo beside an urn, a playlist of songs they loved, a framed copy of a poem or recipe in the kitchen, or a piece of cremation jewelry you wear on hard anniversaries all say the same quiet thing: “You were more than your last day.” Funeral.com’s article Cremation Urns, Pet Urns, and Cremation Jewelry: A Gentle Guide to Keeping Ashes Close offers practical ideas for weaving ashes and keepsakes into everyday life in ways that feel grounding rather than overwhelming.
If your family has also experienced pet loss, you may already be familiar with pet cremation urns and pet urns for ashes—small tributes that honor the bond between humans and animals. Collections such as Funeral.com’s Pet Cremation Urns for Ashes and Small Pet Cremation Urns for Ashes show how gentle, symbolic designs can keep memories close without dominating a room. Some families find comfort in coordinating rituals for both pets and people, such as lighting candles on shared anniversaries or arranging a small shelf with photos, keepsake urns, and mementos that represent everyone they are missing.
The form your memorial takes—cremation urns, small cremation urns, pet urns, cremation necklaces, a scattering or water burial, or no ashes at all—is less important than the meaning it holds for you. Over time, many suicide loss survivors find that the most healing memorials are the ones that make it easier to remember their person’s laugh, their stubbornness, their kindness, and the ordinary days you shared.
You Are Not to Blame, and You Do Not Have to Do This Alone
Living with suicide loss is not about “getting over” what happened. It is about slowly learning to carry it, layer by layer, with help. Support from friends, family, suicide loss support groups, trauma-informed therapists, crisis lines like 988, and communities of other survivors can ease the isolation and shame that too often follow a death by suicide. Along the way, practical tools—clear language, thoughtful funeral planning, and meaningful choices about cremation urns, pet urns for ashes, keepsake urns, and cremation jewelry—can help anchor your grief in acts of love and care.
When the day feels especially heavy, it may help to remember this: your loved one’s story is not defined only by their last chapter. Every time you speak their name, share a memory, or choose a memorial that reflects who they were, you are honoring the whole of their life—not just the way it ended.
