Why I Started Deathday Cards
- 3 min reading time
People can be so weird about death.
It happens to absolutely everyone, causing grief in every shape, size, and weight. And yet somewhere along the way, we collectively decided it was too uncomfortable to talk about, so we just... don't.
Which is absurd, is it not? This possibly huge, life-altering thing just happened to someone you know, and most people are going to act like nothing happened? No card. No call. Maybe an awkward text if they're lucky? It's so sad.
The Moment I Knew Something Had to Change
I used to work at an aerospace company where a very amiable coworker lost his wife of thirty years to breast cancer. When he came back to work, he told me that not one person in leadership stopped by to offer a single word of condolences. I asked my closest work friend how she'd welcomed him back. She'd been off that day, she said, so she'd "missed the window" to reach out.
So she just... didn't.
These are not bad people making these choices to stay away. They weren't uncaring in general, they were just uncomfortable. They didn't know what to say to someone who lost a loved one, so they said nothing. They assumed they weren't close enough to intrude, or that surely someone else would check in. And the person who needed most to feel remembered and seen felt invisible instead.
It shouldn't be that way. And I felt like I could do something about it.
Why My Outlook Is Maybe a Little Brazen
Perhaps I'm less squeamish about all of this because I spent a couple of years working at a cemetery in my twenties. (More on that in an upcoming post- it's a good one.)
Dealing with grief support as part of your daily job changes your whole outlook on death. Death is a part of life. Often it's sad, and sometimes it's tragic. Often it's hard, and yet sometimes it's a relief, a release, closure. Every so often- it can even be funny.
What If the Card Could Do the Hard Part?
This is what inspired me to create sympathy cards that were nothing like the traditional offerings- no wilting lilies, no bible verses, no vague "sorry for your loss" floating in a sea of beige. A card that could bridge the gap between thinking about sending a card and actually doing so.
If I could make the condolence card more approachable, would people be more likely to actually send one? If I created a card that said "It's been a few months now- how are you holding up?", would that reopen the window that everyone assumed was closed? If my goal was to make someone laugh instead of cry when they read it, would that finally put to rest the fear that sending a sympathy card would only make things sadder?
Turns out, yes.
The response to Deathday Cards has been overwhelmingly positive. People are ready to talk about death and grief in ways that go far beyond flowers and platitudes. Grief is real and it's complex. It can be raw, and it can also be very healing. Sometimes it can be both in the same afternoon.
Why We're Called Deathday Cards
I wanted that to be apparent in the name: Deathday Cards. We're not tiptoeing around this. We're not softening the edges or swapping out the uncomfortable words for prettier ones. We're not pretending this isn't happening.
We're here for it. All of it.
The snort-laughs and the ugly cries. The anniversary of a loss you’ve been dreading for weeks. The first holiday without them. The random Tuesday. The moment six months later when someone finally asks "how are you really doing?" and means it.
We call that emotional permission. And we think everyone deserves it.
One day, celebrating a Deathday will be as common as a birthday. We're just getting started.
