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Commemorating Our Loved Ones

Posted on September 25, 2022 - by Colleen Friesen

Every person who grieves will find solace in different things and different ways. Following the sudden passing of my son, I received comfort from actions or objects which draw him close. I have always been someone who connects strongly to objects, scents, tastes, and places of memory. In selecting mementos to decorate my life with, in my son’s absence, I let those proclivities guide me. Just for You You may find people around you are not able to understand or appreciate the things you do. I encourage you; don’t allow a negative response from someone to tarnish the practice or […]

Understanding our Emotions During Grief

Posted on September 22, 2022 - by Jacqui Coombe

There is a common saying in life, ‘nothing lasts forever.’ Unfortunately, this sentiment is true. As such, when we go through loss, whether that loss relates to a job, pet, friend or family member, some common emotions begin to surface. Understanding our emotions during grief will help us heal. Tangled up in loss are often feelings of sadness, grief and even depression. While it can be easy to think that these emotions are interchangeable, that isn’t quite the case. In fact, these three emotional states are quite different. Undoubtedly a heavy topic, it’s still good to understand elements of sadness, […]

Finding Strength in Grief

Posted on September 15, 2022 - by Colleen Friesen

Last week, after I posted my blog article and shared it on my social media, I received a treasured compliment. My soul sister remarked that she appreciated that my writing revealed both vulnerability and strength. As much as I was grateful for the comment when I first saw it, as it lay in my mind, I realized that if I am accomplishing that, I am living my grief in the manner I aspire to. Avoiding Grief Doesn’t Get You Through It In my prior experiences with grief, I fell into some very common pitfalls. In some instances, it was the […]

Hope Can Be Learned

Posted on September 8, 2022 - by Carol Smith

This is an excerpt from Crossing the River: Seven Stories That Saved My Life, a Memoir (Abrams Press, 2021), by Carol Smith. This is a book about trauma and grief. But it’s also a book about love, about living, about persistence and joy. It’s about reinventing, finding purpose, and discovering strength you didn’t know you had until you were called upon to use it. Every one of us fears there is something we could not survive. For me, it was the death of my only child when he was seven years old. He died suddenly, during what was shaping up […]

After My Husband’s Death: Remembering is Grieving

Posted on September 6, 2022 - by Peggy Bell

Living with the loss of a spouse is painful and sometimes even debilitating. It’s so difficult to move forward from such a heartache. It’s especially difficult when the death is unexpected. The grief journey can be brutal. It can bring feelings of sadness, anger, depression, guilt, and disbelief. Letting go and saying goodbye to a spouse is something none of us want to do when we are happily married. Personally, it took a toll on me emotionally and physically at first. I couldn’t accept that he was gone or that I had become his widow. It took almost two years […]

Theresa’s Story: The Surprise of Suicide

Posted on September 6, 2022 - by John Beerman

Theresa’s Story I was terrified. Theresa was missing! My precious three-year-old daughter was missing. The daughter with frizzy curly hair that covered her head in an afro-like blond bonnet. Her mother was grocery shopping and left me to supervise Theresa. I turned on a sports event for just a minute to catch the score, and then I got up to hold her, but she was gone. A frantic search through every bedroom, under every bed, in the garage, and in the yard. We lived in a safe and caring neighborhood across from the University of Houston campus in Clear Lake, […]

The Grief of Returning

Posted on September 6, 2022 - by Colleen Friesen

The Grief of Returning After several years living in Abbotsford, BC, my husband, my sons and I stuffed ourselves and our suitcases into our little Sunfire and set off to embark upon a new adventure. We wove our way out of the Fraser Valley and onto the Coquihalla highway, bursting with hope and anticipation at everything that lay ahead. If there was any regret over the memories, experiences, home, family and life we were leaving behind, we paid it little attention. That is the way of life. We move from day to day, situation to situation, opportunity to opportunity. We […]

Believing in Magical Thoughts

Posted on August 31, 2022 - by Mary-Frances O'Connor

Believing in Magical Thoughts A few years ago, an older colleague of mine passed away. I spent some time with his widow in the months afterward. As a prominent sleep researcher, her husband had traveled quite often to attend academic conferences. Over dinner one night, she shook her head as she told me it just did not feel like he was gone. She was believing in magical thoughts. It felt as though her husband was just away on another trip and would walk through their door again at any minute. We hear this kind of statement quite often from those who […]

Welcome to the Dark Side of Grief

Posted on August 28, 2022 - by Gail Norwood

Welcome to the Dark Side of Grief “If only you knew the power of the Dark Side.” ~ Darth Vader These ominous words portend a foreboding presence. Power and darkness come together to create a daunting force. It is a force I wish I had never known. It is a force that robbed me of my very spirit. It’ss a force that dominated my life for months – and years – that followed my husband’s death. More than three years would pass before I would even begin to feel a desire to live again. Until then, I found the thundering […]

How Child-Loss Feels: A ‘Fugue of Grief’

Posted on August 28, 2022 - by Carol Smith

This is an excerpt from Crossing the River: Seven Stories That Saved My Life, a Memoir (Abrams Press, 2021), by Carol Smith I did not go to my son Christopher’s school the day the nurse came to speak. Instead, I lay fetal-like on his bed, my face pressed to his sheets. The trace scents of crayons and Band-Aids, mud and baseball leather, kept me breathing. I squeezed my eyes shut. Images clicked by like a reel in his View-Master: Christopher, riding a therapy horse, showing off his “tricks,” his arms sticking straight out, his head thrown back, laughing. Christopher, hiding […]