About Afterglow
Love needs somewhere to go.
When someone dies, the love doesn’t. This is how Afterglow looks after it.
What you can do here
Light a star for them
Their star opens into a page where friends and family can add memories and photographs, all in one place. The keeper approves what others add.
Light a starKeep the dates that matter
Keep their birthday, the day they died and dates of your own in one place, with reminders only if you want them.
DatesTalk to people who understand
Community has a room for each kind of loss. Share whatever you are carrying: post, reply, or light a candle under someone’s words.
CommunityHow we look after it
However they died, and whatever anyone said about it, they belong here.
Illness, age, addiction, suicide, or something with no clean explanation. None of it is yours to be ashamed of.
A life, not a score
A star and its page say how many people stopped to light a candle. No star or memorial is ranked by attention. No leaderboard can tell you how much someone mattered.
Your words. Your pace.
Write, read, or just leave a candle. You never owe anyone a public account of your grief, or a story with a neat ending.
You decide who sees it
A page can be public, for family, or private, and so can each photograph on it.
The core is always free
A star and its page are free, always. Afterglow is paid for by Plus, the guide and gifts, if you want them. None of them makes a star brighter. No adverts on Afterglow, and we never sell your data.
What the research says
Afterglow is shaped by grief research, not by a theory of how you should feel.
A changed world
Grieving can be understood as learning to live in a changed world, not simply deciding to feel differently.
O’Connor & Seeley · Grief and learning ↗The brain keeps reaching
Your brain keeps predicting they are here. Each time reality says otherwise is part of what makes early grief so sharp.
Mary-Frances O’Connor · The Grieving Brain (2022) ↗Grief can hurt
Social pain draws on some of the same brain circuitry as physical pain.
Eisenberger, Lieberman & Williams (2003) · Does Rejection Hurt? ↗Room for the swing
Room for both loss and everyday life. Remembering them and taking a break can coexist.
Stroebe & Schut · The dual process model ↗No single timeline
There is no single curve. People follow several paths through loss, and many show resilience.
George Bonanno (2004, 2009) · Loss, Trauma and Human Resilience ↗When it does not ease
For roughly one in ten, grief stays intense and disabling for a long time. That is prolonged grief disorder, and there is specific help that works.
ICD-11 · DSM-5-TR (2022) · Lundorff et al. (2017) ↗Carrying them
People who grieve well do not cut the bond. They carry the person as an inner relationship that keeps changing.
Klass, Silverman & Nickman (1996) · Continuing Bonds ↗Naming it helps
Putting a feeling into words can take some of the heat out of it in the moment.
Lieberman et al. (2007) · Putting Feelings Into Words ↗No streaks, no deadlines
Come and go as you need. Nothing here keeps a streak or expects you to be better by a date.
A design choice, not a clinical claim.
Growing around grief
Grief does not always shrink. Life can grow around it.
Lois Tonkin (1996) · Growing around grief ↗After an illustration by Afterglow.What people expect
- People think that grief feels all consuming.
- Slowly it gets smaller.
- With time you start to carry it differently.
- It becomes a part of you.
What often happens
- In reality, grief stays
- the same size.
- But slowly, life begins around it.
- And you grow bigger around it.
What people expect
- People think that grief feels all consuming.
- Slowly it gets smaller.
- With time you start to carry it differently.
- It becomes a part of you.
What often happens
- In reality, grief stays
- the same size.
- But slowly, life begins around it.
- And you grow bigger around it.
Afterglow is a place for remembrance and peer connection, not therapy or a substitute for professional support. There is no single right way to grieve. Find additional support.
Free to remember
Free, and staying free
Lighting a star, writing and joining Community are free, and will stay free.
Afterglow Plus
Plus gives you room for more photographs, and helps pay for the sky.
The guide
Free to read, with a pay-what-you-want option for the PDF.
Gifts
Keepsakes. Buying one changes nothing in the sky or Community.
If a memorial fund is linked, it points to a campaign the family already runs. Afterglow never takes or holds that money.
Safety
- CheckedAutomatic checks read every Community post and reply as it is sent.
- Held backA post, or a line in Words we needed, that describes how to end a life is held back, and the writer is told why.
- Help firstWhen words suggest someone may be at risk, they still appear. Help lines are shown beside them, and we are alerted.
- A person decidesA check only holds something back. A person decides whether it is removed.
- Keepers approveMemories and photographs that others offer wait for a keeper to approve them.
- ReportEvery memorial, star, post and reply has a way to report it. You do not need an account to report a memorial or a star.
Your data
A star never shows how someone died. Its colour and its place do not use it. A keeper can mention it on the page, in their own words, or leave it out.
Where it is kept
Your account, the memorials you keep and what you write are stored with Supabase, our database provider. Photographs are kept privately and shown only through short-lived links, after a check of who may see each one.
If you leave
You can delete your account from your profile. For 30 days it is read-only and you can change your mind. After that it is erased. What you left on other people’s memorials stays, without your name. Order records are kept for six years, because the law requires it.
Backups
Encrypted copies of the database are kept only as long as they are useful for recovery. If one is restored, every account deletion made since it was taken is applied again.
Why it exists
Afterglow is not here to fix grief. It gives grief somewhere to go, and people to share it with.
Do not carry it alone, and do not stay quiet.
Who runs it
Founder
Tahmid Choudhury
After I lost my brother and sister to drug overdose and suicide, I created Afterglow so we can remember who we lost. I realised people think grief disappears. If you have faced loss like this, you know it hasn’t. This is the place for us all to connect.
Six years ago I lost my sister and my brother. I share my story because I want people to know they aren’t alone in feeling this. And I share the science behind it, because understanding what your brain is actually doing during grief made it feel less frightening for me, so now I break it down for others.
My whole message is about not bottling grief in. After I shared my story, many people comforted me, and many shared their own losses with me. That is why Afterglow exists: a place made for exactly this.
Truly an inspiration, I’m lost for words. Thank you.
Instagram message
You deserve all the gentle and beautiful things in life 🤍
Instagram message
If you need someone to talk to now, find support.
Afterglow is run by Biobrainbuddies Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, company number 15351689. Its registered office is 81 Oxford Road, Gloucester, Gloucestershire, GL1 3EE, United Kingdom.
For anything at all, write to hello@theafterglow.app and a person will answer.
What people taught me
Grief does not need pity.
After I shared my story, many people said they felt sorry for me. I understood why, but grief is not something to pity. It is how love carries on. What helps is being heard.
That is why a star can hold candles and words from the people who stop by, so whoever lit it knows someone saw.
Enter the skyI’ve seen some of your TikTok videos and i ngl bro I do feel soo bad for you the way your handling your griefing and you trying heal up and rebuilding your life together…
Why do you feel bad? Everything is going how it’s meant to be going and channeling this to help other is the gift I can offer others
When one person goes first, others can speak.
Many people who wrote to me went on to tell me about their own loss. Hearing one story out loud can make it easier to tell yours.
That is why Afterglow has Community: a room for each kind of loss, where you can say it and hear from people who understand.
CommunityAm uncomfortable opening up. Your video popped up on my feed and for once I felt someone may actually relate…
It means a lot that my video helped you in some way and it helps me knowing people can open up more by seeing this content. You are already opening up more than you think so keep it up!
And more
I was told not to say how they died. I talk about it anyway, so others feel they can.
However they died, they belong hereI expose the stigma my culture puts on talking about their deaths and resonates with many people who have similar stories but feel like they can’t talk about it openly.
Tahmid, in a TikTok replyThe hard days come round every year. They are easier when someone remembers them with you.
In Dates, keep their days. Holding someone keeps a friend’s hard day too, and nudges you ten days before it and on the day.
DatesI know today might bring a lot of emotions and memories.I know you miss your brother and sister deeply
Instagram message, on his birthdayGrief does not simply go away. People carry it, and life grows around it.
Growing around griefWe know that behind our smiles there are broken hearts, but we choose to keep smiling and to find happiness in the beautiful memories of our loved ones.
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