Blog Post
Quiet Hope: Healing as a Nurse, Mourning as a Mom
By: Yhaimar Barile I’m a nurse. I’m a writer. And I’m a mom who lost her son. Last year, shortly before his eighteenth birthday, my son Gabriel died unexpectedly. Everything changed after that. Life split into a clear “before” and “after.” The world around me kept moving, but mine stopped. Nothing looked or felt the…
Loss Comes In Layers
Post by Maureen Pollard, MSW, RSW When we experience death, it is often perceived as one-dimensional. A person died. We are sad and we miss them. That is grief. Grief is much more complex than this perspective suggests. When someone we love dies, there are multiple aspects to the loss that impact our grief journey. Of course,…
When Death Comes Suddenly
When someone dies suddenly we often struggle with grief that is raw, unpredictable and powerful.
There One Day and Gone the Next : Art Therapy and Grief
This blog post contains information about using art therapy to process grief, including specific examples.
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…
Thinking About Death and Dying
Post by Maureen Pollard, MSW, RSW Though everyone eventually dies, it can be difficult to think about death and dying and many of us avoid it as we go about our every day lives. During the pandemic, as communities all over the world cope with the spread of covid-19, death may be much more present in your…
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…
Thoughts on International Overdose Awareness Day 2023
We lead multifaceted lives, and the deaths of those we love who have died by drug poisoning contain multitudes. The death of a loved one can bring intense grief, shock, anger, shame, or guilt. People who use drugs, and those who love them that they leave behind, face stigma in North America’s dominant, settler culture.
Caring for Someone Who is Grieving
Post by Maureen Pollard, MSW, RSW Caring for Someone Who is Grieving When someone you care about is grieving, it can be hard to know what to do. It may be that you haven’t been through a similar experience and you feel unsure what will be helpful. It’s also quite likely that they’ll be unsure what they…
Learning from Grief
Grief is weird. Odd start, I know, but that was the sentence I used a lot whenever someone asked me how I was. It was never a constant feeling; it changed day to day. And still does. It’s the full gambit of emotions from sadness to anger to guilt and, though dark, even humour found its way in.