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.

Exhumation (Disinterment): Legal Reasons, Typical Costs, and the Step-by-Step Process - Funeral.com, Inc.

Exhumation (Disinterment): Legal Reasons, Typical Costs, and the Step-by-Step Process

Most families don’t wake up expecting to research the exhumation process. It tends to arrive quietly, years after a funeral, when life has shifted in ways no one could predict....

Cancel or Transfer a Cell Phone Plan After a Death: Verizon & AT&T Policies Made Simple - Funeral.com, Inc.

Cancel or Transfer a Cell Phone Plan After a Death: Verizon & AT&T Policies Made Simple

The phone keeps ringing long after a person is gone. A pharmacy reminder. A “happy birthday” text. A two-factor authentication code that appears right when you’re trying to sign into...

Stroke Prognosis Decisions: Rehab, Palliative Care, or Hospice—How Families Choose - Funeral.com, Inc.

Stroke Prognosis Decisions: Rehab, Palliative Care, or Hospice—How Families Choose

The first days after a serious stroke can feel like time is moving in two directions at once. On one hand, everything is urgent—scans, monitors, medications, a new vocabulary of...

How to Close Utility Accounts After a Death: Phone Scripts for Electric & Gas Companies - Funeral.com, Inc.

How to Close Utility Accounts After a Death: Phone Scripts for Electric & Gas Companies

In the days after someone dies, grief can make time feel warped. You can be in the middle of choosing clothes for a service, answering texts you don’t have the...

Helping Children Understand Active Dying: A Sibling Support Guide for Families - Funeral.com, Inc.

Helping Children Understand Active Dying: A Sibling Support Guide for Families

When someone you love is nearing the end of life, adults often try to protect children by keeping things quiet. But most kids notice the changed routines, the whispers in...

The FAST Scale for Dementia: A Family Guide to Late-Stage (Stage 7) Changes and Hospice Readiness - Funeral.com, Inc.

The FAST Scale for Dementia: A Family Guide to Late-Stage (Stage 7) Changes and Hospice Readiness

There’s a particular kind of exhaustion that shows up in late-stage dementia. It isn’t only physical—though the lifting, the overnight wakeups, the constant vigilance can wear down even the strongest...

Neonatal Hospice in the NICU: Comfort Care and Meaningful Memory-Making - Funeral.com, Inc.

Neonatal Hospice in the NICU: Comfort Care and Meaningful Memory-Making

Sometimes, the most loving parenting looks nothing like what you imagined during pregnancy. It looks like learning a new language of medicine in a quiet hospital room. It looks like...

Pediatric Palliative Care vs Adult Hospice: What’s Different and What Families Can Expect - Funeral.com, Inc.

Pediatric Palliative Care vs Adult Hospice: What’s Different and What Families Can Expect

Families rarely arrive at this topic in a calm, spacious moment. More often, it begins in the hallway after a difficult appointment, in the car on the way home, or...

The 3-Month Decline: Common Markers of Transition in Advanced Chronic Illness - Funeral.com, Inc.

The 3-Month Decline: Common Markers of Transition in Advanced Chronic Illness

There is a particular kind of exhaustion families describe when an illness has been “there” for a long time—months or years of adapting, adjusting, rallying, recovering, then adapting again. By...

Breast Implants and Cremation: What Silicone Does in the Retort and Emissions Questions to Ask - Funeral.com, Inc.

Breast Implants and Cremation: What Silicone Does in the Retort and Emissions Questions to Ask

When a family chooses cremation, the questions usually start out practical—paperwork, timing, and what happens next. Then a more personal detail surfaces, often quietly: “She had breast implants. Does that...

Near-Death Experiences: What Science Suggests and Why Spiritual Meaning Matters to Families - Funeral.com, Inc.

Near-Death Experiences: What Science Suggests and Why Spiritual Meaning Matters to Families

Some families tell the story in a whisper, as if speaking it too loudly might make it vanish. A loved one’s heart stopped. There was CPR. There were machines and...

Gold Teeth and Fillings During Cremation: Do They Melt, and Can They Be Recovered? - Funeral.com, Inc.

Gold Teeth and Fillings During Cremation: Do They Melt, and Can They Be Recovered?

When a family chooses cremation, the questions that surface are often surprisingly specific. You may be making decisions about paperwork and timing, and then someone quietly asks, “What happens to...

TSA Guidelines for Cremated Remains: X-Ray-Friendly Urn Materials and Carry-On Tips - Funeral.com, Inc.

TSA Guidelines for Cremated Remains: X-Ray-Friendly Urn Materials and Carry-On Tips

Travel can feel heavy after a loss, especially when you’re carrying something as precious as a loved one’s ashes. Sometimes the trip is for a memorial service in another state....

Advanced Heart Failure: Managing Edema and Fluid Overload for Comfort - Funeral.com, Inc.

Advanced Heart Failure: Managing Edema and Fluid Overload for Comfort

In advanced heart failure, swelling can feel like it arrives quietly—an extra-tight shoe, a sock mark that doesn’t fade, a few pounds that appear overnight. Then, suddenly, it can become...

Cremation Urns Buying Guide: Types, Prices, Where to Buy, and What to Avoid - Funeral.com, Inc.

Cremation Urns Buying Guide: Types, Prices, Where to Buy, and What to Avoid

Buying an urn can feel deceptively complicated. You might be trying to make a meaningful choice while also navigating deadlines, budgets, and a flood of options that look similar online....

Transporting Human Remains Across State Lines: Permits, Paperwork, and Common Options - Funeral.com, Inc.

Transporting Human Remains Across State Lines: Permits, Paperwork, and Common Options

When someone dies far from home, grief often arrives with a second, practical shock: there are decisions to make quickly, and many of them involve logistics you have never had...