There were many blog posts and essays in the last few weeks on what it’s like to spend Mother’s Day and Father’s Day without either of your parents. Some were poignant, some were sad, and others expressed remorse. The writers shared their pain…

Between my mother’s slow death, at 45, in 1968 and my dad’s sudden passing in 1996, much had changed about how we process those losses and the grief that follows. What hadn’t changed so much was the way deaths were announced in…

Q. I want to arrange for perpetual care for my late husband’s grave, but am not quite sure what’s involved, how to proceed, and how much it will cost. Also, what’s the difference between perpetual care and a permanent maintenance…

Q. My husband died recently and I’m thinking about what should be written on his stone. Are there any rules to follow—or any caveats? I don’t want to look back a few years from now and think “Why on earth did I pick those…

An acquaintance had an aggressive form of cancer. I was kept in the loop via text messages and Facebook and so it seemed natural to learn of her death through a text. A friend of the bereaved sent a mass text, not one but a series, with…