FIELD GUIDE
Short articles for hard moments.
Practical writing for the person at 7am with grief brain. Not the planner. Not the lawyer. The one who needs to know what to do today, and what can wait.
What this is
The Field Guide is written for survivors, not about them. The pieces here are short on purpose. None of them tell you what to feel. All of them assume you are tired, that you are reading on a phone in a hospital corridor or at a kitchen table at six in the morning, and that the next ten minutes matter more than the next ten weeks.
We update the pieces as the world changes. Apple revises a recovery process, a state changes the cost of vital records, and we mark the date so you know what you're reading. Nothing here is sponsored. Nothing here links to a service that pays us to send traffic. If a piece is helpful, leave it where the next person can find it.
The pieces
04 · articles
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First 72 hours 7 min readThe first seventy-two hours
A short, kind list for the person who just got the call. Not what to feel: what to do, and what can wait.
Read the piece -
Tools 9 min readWhen you can't get into their iPhone
A plain-language walk through the realistic options for unlocking the iPhone of someone who is gone. What works, what doesn't, and how long each path takes.
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Preparation 6 min readA letter to my family
A twenty-minute template for the note that makes the binder feel human, not administrative.
Read the piece -
Paperwork 5 min readOrder fifteen, not five
The small mistake that costs months. Why you'll need more original death certificates than anyone tells you, and what each one is for.
Read the piece
The binder is what the Field Guide is for.
If anything here was useful, the most useful thing you can do is set up the binder before someone has to learn it the hard way.