The Grief & Death Glossary
Grief throws you into a world where nothing makes sense—and no one hands you a map.
You’re expected to navigate death, loss, and paperwork while your heart is breaking.
You’re handed forms, asked impossible questions, and offered empty platitudes instead of clarity.
That ends here.
This glossary was created to give you language when your own fails you. It’s real, grounded, and stripped of bullshit. Whether you're planning for the future, grieving a loss, or trying to support someone you love—these are the terms that matter.
Take what you need. Print it. Share it. Let it be your guide when the world goes sideways.
A
Advance Directive
A legal document outlining your medical wishes if you're unable to speak for yourself. It’s not just paperwork—it’s a love letter to those you leave behind so they don’t have to guess.
Aftercare
The emotional, spiritual, and logistical tending to the living after a death. Could mean grief support, meal trains, or helping someone close accounts and clean out closets.
After-death Care (aka Body Care)
The tending of a body after death: washing, anointing, dressing, ritual, presence. It's one of the oldest human acts of love.
Anticipatory Grief
Grieving before the death happens. Often shows up in terminal illness, long goodbyes, or dementia care.
B
Bereavement
The state of loss when someone dies. Grief is the storm. Bereavement is the sea you're suddenly thrown into.
Body Disposition
What happens to a body after death—burial, cremation, composting, donation. These choices carry legacy and values.
C
Celebration of Life
An event that honors someone after their death, often more informal than a funeral. Less structure, more storytelling.
Complicated Grief
When grief doesn’t follow a “normal” path. It lingers, loops, or deepens into something that interferes with your ability to function. Often misunderstood, but very real. Now often called Prolonged Grief Disorder.
Cremains
The remains after cremation. Aka ashes. Not as poetic as it sounds, but often a crucial piece of ritual or remembrance.
D
Death Anxiety
Fear or dread about death—your own or others’. It can show up as avoidance, existential spirals, or over-control.
Death Worker/Death Doula
A non-medical companion who supports individuals and families before, during, and after death. Holding space. Bearing witness. Unafraid. Helps with emotional support, rituals, legacy projects, vigil sitting, and advocacy.
Direct Cremation
A simple cremation with no embalming, viewing, or ceremony beforehand. Often the most affordable funeral option.
Disenfranchised Grief
Grief that isn’t recognized by society—like mourning an ex, a pet, a miscarriage, or a stigmatized death (overdose, suicide, homicide). It matters, even when others act like it shouldn’t.
E
Embalming
A process of preserving a body using chemicals. Required by law only in limited situations.
End-of-Life Planning
Preparing for death in practical, emotional, and spiritual ways. A gift to yourself and everyone who will carry your memory.
Eulogy
A spoken tribute to someone who’s died. Not a résumé—just the moments that made them unforgettable.
F
Final Disposition
The legal term for what happens to the body after death—burial, cremation, donation, etc.
Funeral
A ceremony marking someone’s death. May include ritual, religion, or just remembrance. Can be traditional, creative, or anything in between.
Funeral Director
A licensed professional who arranges funerals, body care, and burial/cremation logistics. Not the same as a death worker.
Full-Body Burial
Interring the body without cremation, often with a casket. In green burial, that casket may be biodegradable and minimal.
G
Green Burial
A burial that minimizes environmental impact. No embalming, biodegradable casket or shroud, often no vault.
Grief
The natural, often chaotic, response to loss. It's not linear. It’s not predictable. And it’s not something to fix.
Grief Brain
That foggy, distracted, can’t-focus feeling that comes with loss. You’re not broken. Your brain is just in survival mode.
Grief Ritual
A symbolic act to honor loss, release emotion, or make meaning. Lighting candles, writing letters, burning herbs—it all counts.
Grief Walker
Someone who walks with those who grieve—offering presence, ritual, and care without trying to fix or erase the pain.
Grief Work
The ongoing practice of tending to your loss: feeling it, making meaning, and slowly integrating it into your life.
H
Holding Space
Being fully present with someone’s pain—without fixing, judging, or running. A radical act of love.
Home Funeral
A body is kept and cared for at home after death, with loved ones present. Legal in many states. Sacred, intimate, powerful.
Homicide Loss
When someone is killed by another, grief is often layered with trauma, injustice, fear, and rage. It’s not the same as other deaths—and it shouldn’t be treated as such.
Hospice
A type of end-of-life care focused on comfort, not cure. Usually offered when life expectancy is 6 months or less.
L
Legacy Work
Creating something that carries your essence into the future—letters, stories, videos, rituals. A way of being remembered on purpose.
Living Will
A type of advance directive focused on your healthcare decisions. What you want. What you don’t want.
M
Memorial
A way to honor someone who’s died. Can be an object, a place, an event, or an ongoing tradition. A touchstone for memory.
Memorial Service
A ceremony honoring someone who has died—without the body present. Can be formal, casual, spiritual, irreverent—whatever fits.
Mourning
The external expression of grief—what we do to show we’re grieving. Clothing, rituals, crying, silence, tattoos.
P
Palliative Care
Medical care that focuses on comfort, not cure. It’s about easing pain and improving quality of life—not extending it at any cost.
Postvention
Support after a death—especially important after suicide, homicide, or sudden loss. A net to catch the grieving before they fall too far.
Prolonged Grief Disorder
An official diagnosis for grief that lasts more than a year and deeply disrupts daily life. Important—but controversial.
R
Recomposition/Body Composting/Terramation
Also called “natural organic reduction.” A legal, sustainable method of transforming the body into soil after death.
Re-grief
When old grief rises back up—triggered by anniversaries, holidays, or new losses. Doesn’t mean you’re broken. Just means you loved deeply.
Ritual
An intentional act to mark something sacred or transitional. In grief, rituals give shape to what feels formless.
Reintegration
The long, nonlinear process of learning to live again after loss. You’re not going back—you’re becoming something new.
S
Shadow Grief
The unspoken parts of grief—jealousy, relief, anger, numbness. They’re valid. They belong.
Shadow Loss
A term coined by Dr. Kenneth Doka for losses that aren’t clearly defined or socially recognized. Think: infertility, estrangement, ambiguous death.
Suicide Loss
A type of grief that can feel isolating, complex, taboo. Survivors carry grief, guilt, questions, and stigma.
T
Thanatology
The study of death and dying—medical, cultural, emotional. A field that insists death is worth understanding.
Threshold
The liminal space between life and death. In Solace, we name it with reverence. It’s where transformation begins.
V
Vigil
Staying present with someone who is dying—or with their body after death. Candles, stories, music, silence. Presence as prayer.
W
Wake
Traditionally a gathering to sit with the body and honor the life. Can be solemn or raucous, ritual or rowdy.
Witnessing
To hold space for someone’s grief, death, or transformation without judgment or interruption. To say: I see you. I’m here.