La Toussaint: a postcard for the one who'll visit the grave without you
Published on 21 October 2026 · 4 min read
In France, 1 November is La Toussaint, All Saints' Day, and it belongs to the cemeteries. Every year your grandmother takes the bus there with a pot of chrysanthemums far too heavy for her. It used to be the two of them. Now she goes alone, or with the neighbour, and you ring her that evening: "How did it go?" She says fine, it was cold, the flowers looked lovely. And you hang up. La Toussaint is one of those dates nobody writes in a diary and everybody carries in their head. Which is exactly why a postcard, landing in her letterbox a few days before, does something no phone call can: it says you thought of it ahead of time, from far away, without anyone reminding you.
Why a card, and not only a call
You'll still make the call on the evening of the 1st, and you should. But it comes when she's tired, when she doesn't feel like talking, and when "I'm fine" is enough for everyone. The card arrives before. It sits on the kitchen table on the 29th or 30th of October, gets read twice, gets propped against the vase. It asks no questions and doesn't need her to be all right. And it stays: a lot of people keep these cards in the sideboard drawer, with the photos. Nobody keeps a phone call in a drawer.
What to write: a memory, not condolences
The trap is slipping back into funeral phrases: "thinking of you at this difficult time." It isn't wrong, but it says nothing, and the difficult time is now three years old, or ten. What lands is talking about the person whose grave she's tending, by name, with a real memory. "I keep thinking of Grandpa sorting walnuts on the oilcloth and grumbling at the newspaper." "I made Mum's apple tart again, it wasn't as good as yours." Naming the one who is gone tells the one who remains that he hasn't vanished for you either. And that is often her deepest fear: being the only one who still thinks of him.
Then one line for her, in the present tense
After the memory, come back to the person reading. One sentence about her life, now: "Wear the big coat, that cemetery is always full of draughts." "Say hello from me, and have a hot chocolate at the café across the road afterwards, like we used to." "I'm coming at Christmas, we'll go together." That line is what separates a card about grief from a card about love. It says: I know what you'll be doing that day, and I'm beside you while you do it.
The photo: someone laughing
No cemetery, no candle, no grey sky. If you have a photo of the person you've lost where they're laughing, doing something that was entirely them, that is the most beautiful card you could send: it will end up on the sideboard, next to the frame. If that feels too much, pick a photo of all of you today: the children who have grown, the dog, your garden in autumn. Or simply the view from where you live now, to remind her that you exist somewhere real, and that you were thinking of her when you took it. One rule only: the photo should make her want to look twice.
Who else to write to that week
La Toussaint isn't only about grandparents. Think of the friend who lost his father in the spring: this will be his first one without, and nobody around him will know it but you. Think of your own father, who never mentions it but will still go to his parents' grave. Think of the aunt on her own in the village. For them, three lines are plenty, and the name of the person missing, written in black and white, is worth more than everything else. You don't need to have been close to the one who died. You only need to show that you know what day it is.
The right time to write it: now
A Toussaint card is loveliest when it arrives before 1 November, but it doesn't expire: all through November it will still be right. If you want to hit the date, give yourself two weeks: at UnCoucou your card is printed on thick premium paper, then handed to La Poste on our next dispatch, at least once a week, and after that allow 2 to 5 working days for delivery in France. You pick your photo and write your message from your phone, wherever you happen to be, for any address in France or Monaco, from €2.49 per card, postage included. You'll still call her on the evening of the 1st. But when she picks up, the card will already be on the table, and neither of you will have to search for something to say.