Across diverse communities, and throughout generations, grief came with a script: one that gave the grieving structured support to lean into, and family, friends, and neighbors tangible ways to show up for loved ones. Matching mourning clothes signaled a household dealing with loss. A wake or a shiva gave neighbors a specific place and hour to arrive, sit with the family, and share emotional weight. Meal trains and casserole drop-offs meant that the grieving could think just a bit less about the practical needs of a family while healing. These customs looked different depending on culture, faith, and family, but on the whole, the community played an integral role in supporting individuals dealing with loss.
Some of this infrastructure has disintegrated over time. Extended family lives farther apart. Neighbors gather less often than they used to. Of course, people still care deeply about family and friends going through loss, and still want to help. But what's missing now is shared clarity of purpose: family and friends are unsure how to show up, and the grieving are unsure of how to ask for what they need.
A heavier load, with less support to carry it
Alongside that fading social infrastructure, the administrative weight that comes with loss has grown heavier: settling an estate, filing a claim, navigating benefits paperwork. Families dealing with loss are often the connective tissue coordinating with employers and institutions, with each running on its own timeline. None of this is new, but there's more of this practical burden than there used to be, and deadlines don't pause for grief.
This particular weight rarely gets divided across a community. It often lands on one person, already carrying the emotional reality of loss, often for the first time, and often with little guidance on where to even start.
What the data shows
Our research across more than 6,000 people in the US, UK, and Canada shows these trends aren't just anecdotal. Among people who felt unsupported after a loss, 22% said what they were missing most was emotional closeness from family or friends, 21% needed more time or flexibility to actually grieve, and 15% wanted therapy but felt it was inaccessible.
In the absence of that steady support, more people are looking elsewhere for what they need. Nearly a quarter of people who use AI have already turned to it during grief, reaching for comfort, answers, or practical help as they navigate the aftermath of loss. Beyond emotional support, 56% say they'd be comfortable with AI helping directly with the paperwork, finances, and logistics piling up after a loss. These trends suggest people are increasingly open to new kinds of support when existing systems fall short.
Where Empathy steps in
This is the role we've built Empathy to play. Our Care Managers bring meaningful support to families navigating loss: guided decision-making, grief support, and tools that make the path through loss a bit smoother. Our technology works alongside them, coordinating a claim, untangling an estate, surfacing the right resource before a family even has to ask, so that grieving people can be with their people and focus less on the logistics that tend to pile up on top of their grief. We built our own tech deliberately — it’s shaped by context and oversight, so that turning to it doesn't mean turning away from human support. This way, family, employers, and our own Care Managers can stay present exactly when it matters most.
The events, customs, and gatherings that once told people exactly how to show up for a loss may not come back in the same form, but perhaps they don't need to. What matters is that support evolves as our communities do… so no one grieving must carry the burden of loss alone.
This day isn't really for the people already grieving. They carry that weight every day, with or without a date on the calendar. It's for the rest of us: an opportunity to notice who around us is still carrying loss, long after the loss has faded from recent memory. A moment to think about the colleague who came back to work too soon because there was nowhere else to be, the friend we meant to check on, the family member we assumed was fine because they said so. For the organizations we build and lead, it's a chance to ask honestly whether our policies and practices reflect the way loss actually unfolds, not just the days we allot for it. And for each of us, it's a moment to sit with our own humanity: to remember that none of us are exempt from loss, and that how we show up for others now is how we hope to be shown up for later.
Here’s what we know: societies and communities change, but loss is universal. Further, data shows we still need our people. That's the next chapter we're writing at Empathy: one where we craft AI + human care tools that are built for how people need them now, especially during life’s toughest moments.