How to Support a Grieving Family
Practical ways to stay close after the visitors leave: a ride, a meal, a specific offer and another check-in.
Open the article →For caregivers and chaplains
Practical guidance for the people standing beside a grieving family. Learn from experienced chaplains, prepare for difficult conversations and keep showing up after the funeral.
Watch & listen
Conversations for the work of caring
On notifications, listening, staying in touch and caring for yourself while you support others.
How to Deliver a Death Notification
Watch video →
Chaplain Ken Ashlock: What God Knows
Watch video →
Chaplain Cyndee Thomas Remembers her first death notification
Watch video →
Keeping in touch with survivor family members with Chaplain Terry Morgan
Watch video →
Console with Silence: Supporting Grieving Parents with Empathy and Respect
Watch video →
Helping People Survive the Day
Watch video →
Chaplain David Fair Reading the Room
Watch video →
Empathetic Listening: Healing Through Sharing Stories
Watch video →
Police Chaplain's Emotional Journey: Finding Comfort and Strength in Faith
Watch video →
Dr. Henry McGowan on survivors attending to their own health in grief
Watch video →
Speaking spirit to spirit.
Watch video →
Chaplain Rekedal Power of Telling Stories
Watch video →
Border Patrol Agent Killed in Line of Duty: Family's Tragic Loss and Search for Better Notification System
Watch video →
Chaplain's Heartfelt Impact: Letting God Work Through You
Watch video →
Prepare, listen, follow through
Guidance for supporting a family
42 articles
The 2026 Line-of-Duty Death Benefits a Chaplain Should Know Before Meeting the Family
A printable checklist to help identify possible benefits, connect the family with specialists, and keep the next steps from being overlooked.
Open the article →The First Knock
What a department does in the first hour tells a family whether they will be carried or left.
Open the article →Water or Tea
After terrible news, helpers can take over the last choices a family still has. Dave Fair’s small question shows how to hand some control back.
Open the article →The Funeral Is Over. The Bills Aren’t.
“There are benefits available” leaves a grieving spouse with more questions. Care takes a practical form when someone helps find the right contact, records the next step, and follows through.
Open the article →Who Is This Funeral For?
The public may remember the procession. A child may remember whether anyone included them. Listening to the family reveals what a ceremony alone cannot tell us.
Open the article →When an Officer Dies by Suicide, What Happens to the Family?
Grief deserves compassion, privacy, and continuing support.
Open the article →A Eulogy Should Sound Like Someone Who Knew Them.
A few honest memories can say more than a perfect speech.
Open the article →After the Cars Are Parked
Every department can run the funeral right. The family will measure you by who is still calling in the third month.
Open the article →After the Procession
A town knows how to line the streets for a fallen officer. It is less sure what to do when the flags come down.
Open the article →Do Not Make the Family Ask
"Let me know if you need anything" usually gives the grieving person another job.
Open the article →If Not You, Who?
Who would coordinate a line-of-duty funeral tomorrow? Naming the role, preparing the plan, and giving someone time to practice are decisions a department can make before it loses an officer.
Open the article →It's Okay to Be Human
A sergeant called it good training. John Cooley asked two young officers how they were handling the call, then made room for a break.
Open the article →Keep the Circle Strong
The name should be carried by more than one household. Regular calls, remembered milestones, and a named liaison keep a family connected as the years pass.
Open the article →Neighbors Have a Job Too
Care should not be left only to agencies and organizations.
Open the article →After a Suicide, the Family Still Belongs
A benefits determination can take time. A department’s care need not wait. The words it uses, the honors it considers, and the calls it keeps making tell a family whether they still belong.
Open the article →One Question at a Time
A department that hands a grieving family every form at once is not being efficient. It is asking them to grieve and file paperwork in the same breath.
Open the article →Who Stays After the Funeral Is Over?
John Cooley’s distinction is measured beyond the ceremony: who listens to the family now, remembers them later, and remains someone they can reach.
Open the article →Say Less. Stay Longer.
Most grieving people need fewer speeches and more steady people.
Open the article →Say Something. Use Their Name.
If you have to choose between saying something and saying nothing, say something. Nothing is usually worse.
Open the article →The Belongings Nobody Boxes Up
We handle the locker and the badge with both hands. The accounts, the phone line, and the voicemail greeting deserve the same care.
Open the article →The Children Are Listening
Children know more than adults think, and they remember who kept showing up.
Open the article →The Children Are Listening
We lower our voices to protect the children. They hear the lowered voice, and they fill the silence with something worse.
Open the article →The Court Date Is a Grief Date
The department plans the funeral in a week. The legal case can run for twenty years — and no family should have to walk into that room alone.
Open the article →The Department Grieves Too
A fallen officer leaves more than an empty chair at home.
Open the article →The Family Already Knows the Date
An anniversary is not a reminder to a survivor. It is a test of who else remembered.
Open the article →The Funeral Is Not the Finish Line
The first week is crowded. The third month can be lonely.
Open the article →The Message We Didn't Mean to Send
A department can run the funeral perfectly and still tell a family, without a single word, that they don't matter.
Open the article →The Ones Who Were There
A line-of-duty death leaves grieving officers behind — and some of them are quietly certain it should have been them.
Open the article →The Story Isn't Finished
Twenty years after a Fort Worth officer's line-of-duty death, his family still tells his story — and that is not a failure to grieve. It is grief working exactly as it should.
Open the article →The Third Month Is Quiet
The support crowds in for the funeral and thins out right when the weight gets heavier, not lighter.
Open the article →The Video Will Come Out
Departments rehearse the honor guard and map the procession. Almost nobody is assigned to the footage.
Open the article →The Voice on the Radio
The dispatcher makes the last call at the funeral, then goes back to the console. Somebody should be standing there when she does.
Open the article →There Is No Clock
The world keeps trying to tell grieving families how long they are allowed to grieve. Chaplains know better.
Open the article →Use the Calendar
Birthdays, court dates, and anniversaries can bring the loss close again. A chaplain who records those dates can reach out before the family has to ask.
Open the article →We Still Have the Watch
A department's watch does not end at the funeral — it is measured in who still remembers the date years, even decades, later.
Open the article →What Nobody Tells the Family First
The first appointment at the mortuary blindsides almost every family — a few minutes of preparation the night before hands back some of the control grief has already taken.
Open the article →What the Children Carry
An officer's children grieve on a different clock than the adults around them — and they grieve again at every milestone their parent will miss.
Open the article →When the Community Does Not Know What To Do
Most people are not heartless. They are untrained.
Open the article →Who Were They Talking About?
The community grieves the hero the eulogies describe. The family still has to grieve the person they actually lived with.
Open the article →Would You Like My Wife to Call Yours?
After a line-of-duty death, grief moves sideways into every home connected to the one who died — and the spouses standing there rarely get a call of their own.
Open the article →