Blog Post
Suicide Loss Toolkit [Free Downloadable PDF]
Approximately 4500 people in Canada die by suicide each year. That is approximately 12 people who die by suicide each day. In 2022, 49,476 Americans died by suicide. That’s 1 death every 11 minutes. On average, 5 people grieve for every death. That leaves over 250,000 people experiencing suicide-related grief and distress. Grief Stories has…
How We Learn to Cope With Grief
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…
Grief and Secondary Loss
Post by Maureen Pollard, MSW, RSW Grief and Secondary Loss Secondary losses are those that often accompany the death of a loved one and may go unacknowledged beside the more recognized experience of that primary loss. Secondary loss includes such things as role, family structure, support systems, identity, faith, purpose and security. These connections are related to…
What Can Help with Early Traumatic Grief?
When your child dies you are thrown into a nightmare. None of this is expected to be easy.
Even after several months, it still isn’t. There have been some things that have helped us during
our grief. Maybe they will help you, too.
Getting Comfortable Talking About Grief
Post by Maureen Pollard, MSW, RSW Getting Comfortable Talking About Grief There was a time when death was part of everyday life. People didn’t tend to live long, and there was often a great deal of suffering while they were alive. Birth happened in the home, and death often happened there, too. If death happened elsewhere, the…
Ripples of Grief: Supporting Ourselves, Others, and our Communities After a Death
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…
The Reflection Room® project: How storytelling supports processing grief
The Reflection Room project is an evidence-based participatory art installation that was developed by researchers at the SE Research Centre and Memorial University in 2016. The project included a research component that evaluated the impact of Reflection Rooms as the project adapted over time to address changing needs.
Keeping Records
I pulled the photos out of their envelope one at a time, turning over each one to carefully record the date, place, and people in the photo. Sometimes, I included comments. “Apple picking in Hamilton with Pop Pop, Fall, 2023. You loved the wagon ride!”. I slipped each picture into an empty pocket in my son’s photo album.
Grief & Ice Cream
When my wife of 18 years died in 2016, I became a single father missing the love of my life, and also had to learn how to raise two girls (13-17 at the time) on my own. I remember a conversation I had with my mother-in-law and oldest daughter that began as reminiscing over a person who became a lost love to all of us. We all talked about different aspects of my wife but shortly, it transformed into a “who meant more to her” fest.
Grief, Breastfeeding, and Care
In this essay, I share a bit about my story of grief and breastfeeding. I also share some thoughts about the cultural grief some people are carrying about the lack of support afforded to lactating families whose goal it is to feed their baby from their body. I use some gendered language throughout this essay…
Always Kiss Me Goodnight : Deborah Dickson
Deborah Dickson recently released a book about grief for children called Always Kiss Me Goodnight. She recently reached out to us at Grief Stories to share a bit about it and the accompanying guidebook for parents and teachers who support kids in grief and we are honoured to share a bit more about this important…