The hardest part of the months after a loss isn't usually one big thing. It's the way two very different kinds of work pile up at the same time. There's the inner work — remembering, letting yourself feel it, finding the people you can talk to honestly. And there's the outer work — accounts to close, forms to file, addresses to update, people to thank, the slow disposition of belongings.
Most people doing this work end up with notes scattered across phones, half-finished forms, sticky notes, and the part of their brain that keeps trying to keep track of everything when it's not equipped to. Somebody will ask "have you closed the bank account yet?" and the honest answer is "I think so, but I don't remember when, and I'm not sure I have the confirmation."
A vault that holds both kinds of work — the memories and the paperwork, on the same single platform — fixes a lot of the small everyday friction. It doesn't ask you to be productive, and it doesn't ask you to feel any particular way. It just holds what you put into it, and the agent helps with the parts that drain you.
Treat what follows as a starting shape, not a prescription. Grief work has no right schedule. Use what fits. (For the proactive version of the same paperwork — what to organize before something happens — Estate Planning and Will Preparation: A Calm Place to Keep It All is the companion guide.)
One parent page for the loss, with two main branches
In Docapybara, the work after a loss can sit on a single parent page. Pages nest with no depth limit, OneNote-style, so a parent page named for the person — Mom, Dad, David, Auntie Pearl — can have child pages for Memories, Practical, People, Letters, and For myself.
The shape doesn't have to be perfect. The point of one parent page is that you can find it. Through the months when finding things is hard, having one place that holds the work is its own kindness.
The agent treats the whole nested structure as one searchable pile. "What did the funeral home say about the ashes?" The answer comes back from whichever page you wrote it on, even if you don't remember which.
A memories page that doesn't ask you to organize them
The memories don't fit any structure. They arrive — driving home, standing in line, halfway through the dishes — and they don't wait until you're at a computer. They want to be caught and they don't want to be tagged.
A Memories page can stay flat. One long page, dated entries, no categories, no order. Or one child page per moment if you'd rather. Whatever costs you the least at the moment of writing.
Voice is often the right capture tool for memories. Tap record, talk for as long as you need to, get a transcript with speaker labels (useful when you and another family member are remembering together — "Mom always said it was the third trip to the cabin, but I'm sure it was the second"). The transcript lands on the page with a timestamp.
There's no obligation to ever re-read these. Some of them you'll come back to. Some of them are just for the act of writing them down. The vault doesn't ask which is which.
A few people find a One year of memories habit helpful — a quick voice note at any moment in the day when something reminds them. Not every day, just whenever. After a year, the page is something the family can sit with together.
A practical page that holds the bureaucracy in one place
The practical side of loss is its own kind of work. Closing accounts. Settling the estate. Notifying institutions. Filing forms. Each of these is small; together they're a months-long second job at exactly the worst time.
A Practical page can hold the running list and an inline database of the institutions and tasks. The :::database::: directive lets a small spreadsheet live alongside the prose, in the same page. Columns for institution / task, status (not started / in progress / done), date, contact, and a note.
The agent can update it. "Mark the bank notification as done — called today, account closed, confirmation number is in the email I just got." Row updates with the date.
For tasks that involve a paper form (death certificate, account closure, life insurance claim, transfer of title), drop the PDF on the relevant page when you fill it out. PDFs upload and convert to markdown automatically, so what you wrote on the form is searchable text. "What did I write as the date of death on the bank's form last month?" The answer comes back grounded in the actual document. (Personal legal matters short of estate work get their own walkthrough in Notes for Legal Documentation.)
The agent can be the bookkeeper. "What's still open on the practical page, and what's the next thing to do — anchored on what's actually been done versus what hasn't." You get a small, sane next-step list instead of a scrolling page that makes you feel behind.
A people page so the right thank-yous can happen
Through the months after a loss, dozens of people will do something kind. A meal dropped off. A long phone call. A flower delivery. A specific message that meant a lot. A contribution to the cause in their honor. A favor done for the family without being asked.
The intention to thank everyone is universal. The follow-through is hard, because the list of who did what isn't anywhere.
A People page (or database) holds it. Name, what they did, date, status (acknowledged / thank-you sent / personal note done). Five seconds when something happens; a real list when you're ready.
The agent can help with the writing later. "For the people on the list whose contribution I haven't acknowledged personally yet, draft a short note to each — keep them honest and specific to what they actually did, not a form letter." The drafts come back; you adjust the parts that don't sound like you; you send them on whatever schedule you can manage.
For people who are themselves grieving the same loss — siblings, a partner, close friends of the person — a separate note on the page about what each one needs (what they want to talk about, what they don't, what they want from you, what you can offer). Not a plan; a small honest acknowledgment that grief is different for everyone close to the same person.
A letters page for the writing that doesn't have a recipient yet
Some of what you'll want to write doesn't have a clear addressee. A letter to the person you lost. A letter to your future self. A piece of writing that's just an attempt to make sense of something. A list of things you wish you'd asked.
A Letters page (or one child per piece) is the right shape. The agent doesn't write these for you. What it can do is help you start, when starting is the hardest part. "I want to write a letter to my dad about the conversation we never finished. Help me find a starting line — anchor it on what I've already written about him on these pages, but keep the writing mine." The opening sentence comes back; you take it from there or you don't.
Some of these letters are eventually shared (with family, at a memorial, with a therapist, with a partner). Some never are. The vault doesn't care.
For people writing toward a longer piece — an essay, a memoir, a eulogy you weren't asked to give but want to write anyway — the Letters page becomes the draft folder. Across months, a real piece of writing accumulates from the running fragments.
A "for myself" page nobody else needs to see
The harder, more private part of the work — what you're feeling, what you're afraid of, what you can't say to family members for whom the loss is also fresh, what your therapist asked you to write down — gets its own page.
Voice is often the right capture tool. Tap record when you're alone in the car or on a walk or before bed. The transcript lands on the page; it's there if you ever want to look at it; it's not asking anything of you.
The agent can help when asked. "I've been writing about [recurring theme] for weeks. What patterns are showing up in what I'm writing, and is there anything I'm circling around without naming?" The answer is grounded in your own words, not a generic interpretation. You take from it what's useful and ignore what isn't.
For people working with a therapist, the agent can prepare for sessions. "I have therapy in two days. Pull the three things from this past week's writing that I most want to bring up, and draft a couple of sentences I could open with." Useful when you arrive in the room and your mind is empty.
A complementary habit some find helpful: a Hard moments page, just a list of dated entries when the grief lands harder than usual. Not for analysis. Just for you to look back six months later and see the rough trajectory of how this is changing — slowly, but it is. (For the broader low-friction capture pattern that supports any of this writing, see The Capture Habit: Remembering the Things That Actually Matter.)
The conversations with family the agent can quietly help with
Loss surfaces logistical and emotional conversations across families that often don't happen otherwise. Who's getting what. What the dead person actually wanted. What an aging parent now wants for themselves. What the holidays look like next year.
A Family conversations page can hold the rough notes from these conversations — what was said, who agreed to what, what's still unresolved. Not a contract; a memory aid for the next conversation. Voice transcripts work well, especially after a long phone or in-person talk where you'd otherwise lose the specifics.
The agent can summarize across them. "Looking at the conversations with my siblings from the past two months — what have we actually decided versus what's still pending?" The list comes back. The next conversation starts in a real place instead of a re-litigation.
A starter shape that asks nothing of you
If you're moving from "everything in my head and a stack of papers" to a vault, this is the shape we'd suggest. Be very gentle with yourself about how much you do.
- A single parent page named for the person.
- A Memories page — flat, dated, voice-friendly. The most important page.
- A Practical page with an inline database of the institutional bureaucracy — the agent can be the bookkeeper.
- A People page — who did what, when you're ready to thank them.
- A For myself page that nobody else ever needs to see.
- A Letters page if you find yourself wanting to write to someone or to yourself.
That's it. No daily ritual. No streak. No expectation that you use this every day, or every week, or at all when it doesn't help. The vault is patient.
The point isn't to make grief productive. It's that the small amount of structure you keep means the practical work doesn't add to the weight, the memories that arrive at hard moments are caught instead of lost, and the harder writing has somewhere private to live.
Try Docapybara free — start with the Memories page and a voice note about one moment, and let the rest happen on whatever schedule the months give you.