Grief Is Weird. So Are We.

If you’ve ever laughed at exactly the wrong moment during a funeral… you’re in the right place.

Death Queens didn’t come from a business plan, a branding brainstorm, or one too many glasses of Rosé.

It came from grief.

A lot of it.

The kind that sneaks up on you in waves.

The kind that sits on your chest at 2 a.m.

The kind that changes the shape of your life without asking permission first.

We’re Mary and Christine (nice to meet you!). We became co-workers 17 years ago, friends 16 years, 11 months, and 30 days ago, and chosen sisters within a week or so after that.

Between the two of us, we’ve lost more people than feels remotely fair.

Christine has lost her entire immediate family. Yup, all of them.

As for me? I stopped counting for a while after I hit 16 losses in 13 years because, frankly, that sentence alone sounds dramatic enough without me keeping an Excel spreadsheet about it.

I’ve lost my father-in-law, my sister-in-law, childhood friends, friends’ spouses… the list goes on.

We’ve both lost people we genuinely couldn’t imagine this world existing without. Some losses were expected. Some happened suddenly. Some were so strange and tragic they still don’t feel real.

But here’s the thing: This isn’t the Grief Olympics.

We’re not here to one-up anybody’s pain or hand out trophies for suffering.

Loss is loss. Grief is grief. And whether you lost your person yesterday or twenty years ago, whether it was expected or ripped violently out of nowhere, grief has a way of making you feel like you’ve been dropped into an alternate reality where everybody else somehow kept functioning.

Death Queens exists because we know that feeling firsthand.

Because while grief is heartbreaking, disorienting, exhausting, unfair, and occasionally rage-inducing…

…it can also be unintentionally hilarious.

Not the loss itself. Never that.

But the strange, uncomfortable, absurd human moments surrounding it? Absolutely.

If you know, you KNOW.

You know the church giggles that strike at the exact wrong moment during a funeral service. The look exchanged across the pew that says, “If we make eye contact right now, it’s OVER.”

You know the bizarre things people say when they don’t know what to say.

“She’s in a better place.”

“Everything happens for a reason.”

“At least he’s no longer suffering.”

(Meanwhile, you’re sitting there wondering if you can legally punch someone in a funeral home lobby.)

You know the casseroles. The flowers. The emotionally charged trips to Target where you somehow spend $147 on candles and absolutely nothing useful.

And you know the moments after everyone else goes home.

The moments where grief stops performing and starts telling the truth.

One of those moments happened when I sat up with my best friend until the sun rose the morning after her husband suddenly passed away. We drank wine, cried, stared blankly into her yard, just listening to music for a while… and then it happened.

Everything got funny.

We started laughing so hard at the most wildly inappropriate things that neither of us could breathe.

And no, it didn’t mean we loved him any less.

It meant we were human.

That’s the part of grief nobody talks about enough.

Humor and devastation coexist all the time. Sometimes within the exact same minute.

One moment, grief knocks the wind out of you so hard you can barely function. The next, somebody says something so absurdly inappropriate that you laugh-snort into your coffee like a feral raccoon. Then the wave comes back again.

That’s grief.

It’s messy and disorienting and deeply weird.

And honestly? We think people deserve permission to stop pretending otherwise.

That’s why Death Queens exists.

Not to mock grief.

Not to minimize loss.

Not to turn pain into a punchline.

But to acknowledge something deeply human: sometimes laughter is survival.

Sometimes the funniest people in the room are carrying the heaviest things.

Sometimes wearing an “I Put the 'Fun' in Funerals” t-shirt isn’t about making light of death. It’s about signaling: “Yep. I’ve been through some shit too.”

And for the friends standing beside someone in grief, we want to give permission there, too.

Because if your best friend or sibling or partner has a dark sense of humor, sometimes the kindest thing you can do is meet them there.

Not with toxic positivity.

Not with another beige sympathy card written in Times New Roman.

Not with “everything happens for a reason.”

But with humanity.

With levity.

With honesty.

With the kind of humor that quietly says: “I still see YOU underneath all this grief.”

Because that person is still there.

Underneath the funeral planning.

Underneath the paperwork.

Underneath the numbness.

Underneath the crying in the parking lot or emotionally support-shopping online at 1 a.m.

They’re still there.

And if humor gives them a tiny moment where they can exhale? Good.

That matters.

Research actually backs this up, by the way. Studies have shown that humor can help regulate overwhelming emotions, reduce feelings of isolation, and create connection during grief and trauma. Gallows humor is incredibly common among hospice workers, first responders, ICU nurses, military personnel, and people who’ve survived profound loss.

Why?

Because sometimes the human nervous system needs a release valve.

That doesn’t mean the grief disappears. It doesn’t mean the sadness isn’t real. It just means laughter and sorrow are not enemies. They can sit at the same table.

Frankly, they usually do.

So no, Death Queens is not for everybody.

And that’s OK.

But for the people who’ve ever laughed at a funeral and immediately felt guilty…For the people who use sarcasm as emotional CPR…

For the people who have survived devastating things and still somehow manage to crack a joke in the middle of the wreckage…

We see you.

We ARE you.

Welcome to Death Queens.

Now come sit by us.

Just don’t make eye contact because we absolutely cannot guarantee how that’s going to go.