Rent a Mourner plans to expand its service because it has not been able to meet demand. Robertson said he has turned down more than 60 requests to date because the funerals were too far away.

If the mourner does not feel like talking, that's okay. You are there to comfort them, not to engage them in a conversation. Please don't avoid speaking about the person who passed.

I am usually not the designated mourner, so I didn't realize that those buried in the ground at Holy Cross get two boxes to preserve their remains: the casket (this one a Cadillac model) carefully ...

Funerals are usually emotional events. But if you're worried that it won't have enough sad faces, there's a company that will help you make it sadder. The U.K.-based "Rent A Mourner" allows family ...

I may not be a “mourner,” but I am an unconditional griever. Grief is singular. Everyone experiences loss within the specialness of their culture, family and personality.

Lawrence Dowl, 15, didn't come home after going out with a friend on Aug. 12. Two days later, he was found dead in a cemetery.

The mourner’s kaddish is similarly unrelenting. Throughout the day, it seems I am always running off to minyan to declare that God will bring peace to the people of Israel. This is in our DNA.

The Designated Mourner: Theater Review Wallace Shawn stars in a revival of his landmark 1996 play about a bourgeois society of intellectuals who fall victim to a totalitarian regime.

Note. The Designated Mourner is published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (103 pp., $19). I suggest seeing the film first; then, when you read it, the actors' voices will be in your ears.