What Can Help with Early Traumatic Grief?

By Claire Irwin

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.

1. Let someone organize a meal train. The community rallied, making sure we had meals
delivered to our home for weeks after our daughter died. I have zero idea what we would have
done without this. Right after this traumatic loss I couldn’t even think about eating, let alone
cooking and meal planning.

2. Grief counselling. Our counsellor comes every week since the second day. Some may not agree, but honestly, we have learned some great survival tools and have our feelings validated.
To be able to talk about it all in a safe environment is very helpful, and just talking about
everything helps.

3. Find something to keep you busy. Mind you, we haven’t found our way to any gym yet or back to work, but we find other ways to move our bodies. Gardening, cutting grass, walks,
landscaping, anything really to get our bodies moving has really helped us.

4. Try journaling. I wish I started this earlier. If you can find it in you to do it, I recommend it. For me personally, it helps get whatever is in my head out on paper. I document how I’m feeling. I also get my anger out on paper too. I’ve been learning that you can let it build up inside of you. This energy needs to get out. I find writing very helpful for me. I journal daily. Plus, it helps me keep my days in order because they tend to blend.

5. Let your support system hold you. This has been a huge help. I don’t know where I would be today if I didn’t have the people closest to us. Lean into them and let them help. Use them as sounding boards. Whatever it is you need, if they are willing and able to be there for you, let
them. It’s not easy asking for help or accepting it, but it’s helped us feel loved and seen. It’s also
helped us back on our feet a bit.

At the core of it all, just remembering to breathe is sometimes all you can do. Something our
grief counsellor has taught us right from the very beginning:

Inhale 4 seconds…Hold 7 seconds…Exhale 8 seconds. Repeat as needed.

Like I said, surviving this grief and trauma isn’t easy, and it doesn’t come with a handbook. We
are all just doing the best we can, and it’s sucks all at the same time. Our loss cannot be fixed, it
can only be carried, and these are some of the things helping us to carry it now.

a field of daisies

Beauty found at the edges: a portrait of community support

By Meghan Sheffield

In the first days of July, there aren’t many flowers blooming, I learned.

I’d sent a text saying “Hello friends, I’m putting out a call for flowers. I went to public school with Kory, the young man who died in downtown Cobourg this week, and though I hadn’t seen him in recent years, I feel the loss of him on a community level, as I imagine you do, too. Some of Kory’s people are gathering tonight in vigil at the bank where he died, and I’m gathering flowers from those of us who have gardens to share with this grieving community. Do you have some blooms in your garden that you’d be willing to share?”

Kory died as a result of a toxic drug poisoning that took his life in the bank vestibule where he was sheltering. His friends were grieving, angry, disbelieving. The wider community was in shock that this could happen here, in such an ordinary place, to a local boy, born and raised.

Those who knew him best, who had been with him in what became his last days and months, began to talk about holding a vigil, a time and place to be together in their grief.

As it turned out, the tulips and peonies had faded and finished, and the dahlias and zinnias hadn’t begun to flourish yet. I got some nervous replies about the current state of the garden. A mom from my daughter’s class texted to say that they were sorry, but just didn’t really have much to offer right now.

Then the first yes rolled in. “Yes, I will pull something together. We have one million daisies.”

A man’s whole life. One million daisies.

As it turned out, there was an abundance to be had, if you knew where to look, if we just widened the margins of “the garden” and looked to the edges of the wild places.

We know that trauma of all kinds is inequitably distributed in our society, and that access to healing resources is even more inequitable. For community members who rely on a prohibited, criminalized supply of certain substances, the experience is not just a risk of personal harm, but of compounding losses and grief. It means mourning in isolation because the cause of death is so stigmatized. It means administering life-saving medicine and performing chest compressions in the glow of flashing lights, while still in mourning for the most recent loss.

I spent an hour driving around, picking up mason jars filled with blooms from doorsteps all over town. There were daylilies and hydrangea, wild vetch and bladderwort, fragrant bee balm and holy basil, and yes, one million daisies.

At the vigil, the jars of flowers were joined by an eagle feather and abalone shell, offerings of cigarettes, and a can of Molson resting on the window sill outside the bank. Candles were lit, stories were told, tears were shed.

Those of us who didn’t know Kory well, who were present to show our support, to acknowledge the community and systemic level failures that had led us to this place, were invited to hold a perimeter of care for those in the centre, who were grieving, by standing at the edges of the gathering.

For days after the sunset vigil, at the doorstep of an ordinary bank, flowers bloomed on the grey cement sidewalk on main street. Wild, fleeting, beauty.