Death of a Parent

Zoreena – Burnout and counseling

Zoreena talks about her father’s decline in a nursing home during COVID

Zoreena – Passing on kindness

Zoreena talks about wakes, funerals, COVID and the importance of kindness

Kim – Facebook and connecting

Kim – discussses our need to connect and how Facebook was useful after her Mum’s death

Lisa -How grief changes

Lisa talks about being lost after her Dad passed away and two years later how she has come to a place of groundedness

Kim – Self care

Kim talks about looking after yourself and how much it helps. In particular be kind to yourself

Karyn and Aidan – Coping with the COVID restrictions

Karyn and Aidan talk about how they dealt with not being able to visit John in hospital

Cheryl and Mike – “Their Story”

Cheryl and Mike discuss losing more than one family member. They continue to grieve Cheryl’s father and the death their daughter in a car accident.

Zoreena – COVID and isolation

Zoreena discusses COVID isolation and the loss of time to spend with her Dad and her cousing

Jackie – Finger painting and grief

Jackie discusses how finger painting help her with her feelings while she was grieving the loss of her mother and sister

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.

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.

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…