Grief Journaling: Prompts to Help You Remember and Heal

A grief journal is a private place to put what you can't always say out loud: memories, questions, anger, love and the small details you don't want to forget. You don't need to be a writer. Start with ten minutes, one prompt and no rules, and keep only what helps.

Why writing can help

Grief often comes with thoughts that circle and circle. Writing them down can slow them and give them somewhere to land. Writing also helps you hold on to memories: their laugh, their phrases, the stories only you know.

Health organizations often list writing among healthy ways to cope. The American Academy of Pediatrics suggests journaling (opens in a new tab), along with walks, music and art, as coping strategies parents can model for grieving teens. The Dougy Center's tip sheet for teens says simply: “Write it out. Forget spelling and grammar, there are no grades in grief. (opens in a new tab)”

What research says

The research on writing after a loss is mixed, and it's worth knowing that.

• Open-ended emotional writing: in a 2002 study, Margaret Stroebe and colleagues randomly assigned recently bereaved people to a standard emotional-writing task or to no writing. The writing task did not reduce distress or doctor visits (opens in a new tab), right after the loss or six months later.
• Writing with a focus: a 2010 trial with 68 bereaved college students found that writing aimed at making sense of the loss or finding benefit or meaning (opens in a new tab) reduced prolonged grief, depression and post-traumatic stress symptoms three months later. Writing about benefits found in the experience appeared especially helpful. The study was small, so the authors describe directed writing as possibly useful, not proven.
• Writing in therapy: the American Psychiatric Association notes that some effective treatments for prolonged grief include online programs where mourners write virtual notes (opens in a new tab) to the person who died.

So writing isn't magic, and it isn't required. But gentle, focused prompts, like the ones below, are a reasonable thing to try.

Getting started

• Choose what's easy to open: a notebook, a notes app or the memory journal above.
• Keep it short. In the 2010 study, people wrote in three 20-minute sessions over one week. Ten minutes is fine.
• No rules. Write lists, fragments, one word, or draw instead.
• Close gently. End with one steadying line: what you'll do next, or one thing that helped today.

Prompts for hard days

• Today the grief felt like …
• The moment I missed you most today was …
• What I want people to understand about how I feel is …
• Something that helped a little today was …
• If my grief could talk, it would say …
• One thing I can do for myself tonight is …

If guilt or “what if” thoughts keep coming up, try writing what you actually knew at the time next to what you know now. Our guide to guilt after a loss explains why hindsight is so unfair.

Prompts for remembering

• A story about you that always makes people laugh …
• Your favorite food, song, place and phrase were …
• Something you taught me without meaning to …
• What I'd want my children, or future children, to know about you …
• The way you showed you loved me …
• A memory I'm afraid of forgetting …

Ask family and friends to add their own memories. The Dougy Center suggests that teens who worry about forgetting can ask others to share stories about the person. Those stories can fill pages you couldn't fill alone.

Prompts for meaning

These follow the kinds of writing that showed promise in research: making sense of the loss, and noticing what it has shown you. Only use them when you're ready.

• How has losing you changed the way I see my life?
• What do I understand now that I didn't before?
• How do I want to carry you with me from here?
• What would you want for me this year?

The VA's National Center for PTSD suggests that noting, by talking with others or journaling, how you have grown since a loss (opens in a new tab) can be valuable, especially around anniversaries. See anniversaries and holidays for more.

Letters to the person who died

Many people find it helps to write directly to the person.

• Dear ___, here's what's happened since you've been gone …
• What I never got to tell you …
• I'm sorry for … and I forgive you for …
• Thank you for …

For children, the Dougy Center suggests ideas like making a card for their sibling or writing a letter (opens in a new tab), while staying open to the child's own ideas, and respecting a “no” if they don't want to share it.

Keeping it private

Your journal belongs to you.

• On this site: the memory journal keeps entries on your own device, in your browser. They are not sent to the Amin Foundation. Clearing your browser data can delete them, so copy or print anything you want to keep.
• On paper: keep it somewhere safe, and decide ahead of time whether anyone can read it.
• Sharing is your choice. You might share one page with a sibling or a counselor. You don't have to share any.

If writing ever leaves you feeling worse, stop and do something steadying. For more ways to carry grief day to day, read making room for grief.

What you can do today

• Open the memory journal above, or a notebook, and write one sentence to the person who died.
• Pick one prompt for a hard day and one for remembering.
• Set a 10-minute timer and write without stopping or fixing.
• Ask one person to tell you a story about them, and write it down.
• If you feel hopeless or unsafe, call or text 988 now. In an emergency, call 911.