Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Other Special Days

How We Learn to Cope With Grief

September 24, 2020

Post by Maureen Pollard, MSW, RSW How We Learn to Cope With Grief Death inevitably brings grief when the person who died is someone we love. Grief is never easy, even when the death is one that comes in the natural order of life; a loss we were expecting. We learn to cope with grief through experiencing…

Things That Helped When My Dog Was Dying

August 28, 2024

I lived with a dog named Althea, who belonged to my roommate, during my undergrad. Every year, my partner, our roommate, and I would go to a summer solstice festival. The year Althea was pregnant, my roommate brought her to the festival. The first night there, he retired to his tent to nap in preparation…

Practicing Self Compassion while Grieving

September 25, 2024

Grief is messy, confusing, enormously painful, and never seems to follow a linear path. This is when we need to take care of ourselves deeply, and yet, why is it that this is also when we beat ourselves up the most? We are good at being compassionate toward others when they are grieving — something…

Grief and Parenting in the Disability Community

October 5, 2022

In this blog post, Carrie writes about being the parent and primary caregiver to a child with disabilities and grieving the loss of a child dying from their disabilities.

Tips for Grieving During the Holidays

December 23, 2022

The holidays can bring up a lot of feelings, especially when you’re grieving the loss of a loved one. Whether it’s the first holiday season without someone, the holidays mark a time where someone you love died, or it’s just hard to be around celebration when you’re not feeling celebratory, December can feel heavy.

These are a few tips for grieving during the holidays.

Living in the Aftermath of Traumatic Death

May 20, 2020

The sudden unexpected, traumatic death of a loved one is something like having a limb torn off.

Shocking. As if the air has been sucked from your lungs and you can’t manage another breath.

Ripples of Grief: Supporting Ourselves, Others, and our Communities After a Death

June 21, 2023

By Jessica Milette, MSW, RSW When death knocks on the door of a community, each of us are impacted. Sometimes a death will touch many lives across a community, whether people knew the deceased personally or not. We may grieve the death of a family member, friend, or acquaintance, a well-known community member, or someone…

Grief, Exhaustion, & Rest

March 21, 2024

Many people consider grief to be a response to the death of a loved one, but we grieve so much more than that. Grief is an emotional response to loss of any kind. Both real or perceived loss can trigger the response. The loss of a job, a miscarriage, a breakup, losing a sentimental item,…

Mourning a Man I Never Knew

June 15, 2023

This spring, I turned fifty-four. I have now outlived the father I never knew: my biological father. It’s been almost twenty-three years since we spoke; eighteen years since I learned of his death. I’m still dealing with the strange grief of his loss.

Holding Space for The Many Faces of Grief on Father’s Day

June 15, 2024

A lot of blog posts and articles about grief and special days tend to focus on how to navigate these moments when our loved one has died. Often these articles of grief also talk about the ways we have deeply loved or cared for the person who has died. Grief is a natural response to…

Grieving Through Another Pandemic Holiday Season

December 20, 2021

Post by Maureen Pollard, MSW, RSW Grieving Through Another Pandemic Holiday Season This is our second year collectively facing a crisis across the globe that has kept us living with some level of anxiety and feelings of isolation. The COVID-19 pandemic has been very hard on so many people in many ways. It can feel endless and…