At Wildflower, we spend much of our time walking alongside people through the loss of human loved ones. We witness grief in all its forms—quiet, complicated, raw, and deeply personal. And yet, every so often, someone will say something almost apologetically: “I don’t know why this hurts so much… it was just my dog.”Or “I feel silly being this upset about a cat.”

Ambiguous grief, or ambiguous loss, is grieving a significant relationship change or loss where there's no clear closure, often involving someone who is physically present but psychologically gone, like with dementia. The emotional, psychological, and spiritual processes that come with ambiguous grief are very different than those that come with unambiguous grief, like that following a death.

The holidays tend to come wrapped in expectations—joy, togetherness, celebration, warmth. But for anyone navigating grief, this season can feel complicated. The lights get brighter just as the inner world feels dimmer. The pace gets faster when our hearts need to slow down. Here are 11 grounded, compassionate ways to support yourself or someone you love this season.

It’s that time of year — the veil is thin, the pumpkins are lit, and even funeral directors can lean into the spooky side of their work. At Wildflower Funeral Concepts, we believe that death isn’t something to fear… but we’ll admit, some funerals throughout history do give us goosebumps (in the best possible way). Here's 13 spooky funerals that give us chills

Mourning in the 1800s wasn’t just a feeling. It was a lifestyle. An entire etiquette system existed around death: how long you should grieve, what you should wear, where you could go, and even how to behave on your front porch. Here are 8 mourning customs from the Victorian era that we’re (mostly) glad have faded with time — and a few that still hold a kernel of meaning in how we grieve today.