Death of a Parent

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.

Collective Grief

When the death of a person affects many members in a community, city, country, or across the world, people will experience collective grief.

These are some things that can help people through the experience of collective grief across a community.

Caileigh – My own grief and supporting others

Caileigh tells about her own grief and now it has given her a really powerful lens on how to support children going through grief as well. Along with her professional education and training, there is now a different perspective on grief and how that fits in with supporting others.

Lyss – Losing My Mother

Lyss discusses losing her mother and how her first thought was that her mother would never meet her kids Now being a mother herself brings back many memories of her.

Adam – Story 2

Adam discusses his busy life and how he has coped after losing his mother

Lisa – Music and a safe space

Lisa explains how music has been a safe space for her to feel all of the emotions that have come up since she lost her Dad

Hope – Benefits of child-centred grief programs

Hope discusses hope grief camp gave her and her family a place to feel normal

Sam – Prostate Cancer

Sam talks about prostate cancer and losing his father and uncle to it

Cheryl and Mike – “Grieving more than one person”

Mike and Cheryl discuss how it gets complicated with multiple losses. They continue to grieve Cheryl’s father and the death their daughter in a car accident.

Finding Joy During the Holidays After Loss When Everything Feels Awful: A message of hope.

My mother died in the middle of the night on January 1, four days before I turned sixteen. I don’t remember much about Christmas the couple weeks before she died, just that we spent a lot of that season in the ICU of the hospital where my mother had birthed my brother and I. For…

Karyn and Aidan – Describing grief during the pandemic

Karyn and Aidan talk about how their grief has changed and the challenges they have faced grieving during a pandemic

Jessica M – Finding Hope

Jessica shares memories of her brothers birthday which was just before her mothers death and how they all found hope