Blog
Welcome to the Grief Matters blog. We intend for this space to provide an opportunity for the Grief Matters community to write, read, share, and reflect about ‘all things grief.’ At Grief Matters, we understand grief as the experience of loss. This loss could be a death (a human, an animal). It could also be the loss of something else: your health, a job, an opportunity, a future goal, or dream.
While grief can look and feel different to every individual, we live our grief within our social networks and in our communities. We feel that community matters deeply to the experience of grief. So, we invite you to share with us in order to help create more grief-attuned communities.
How does grief matter to you?
What grief matters are important to you?
Email us your ideas about how you could contribute to the Grief Matters blog. Please see our guest bloggers guidelines.
Read our ‘Fundamentals of Grief’ Blog Posts
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Why is grief so uncomfortable to talk about?
I lost my mom when she was only 59 years old. She was too young to leave this world, and I was too young to lose her. There were months and months filled with crippling pain, the kind that completely takes your breath away. I would wake up and realize all over again that my mom was gone forever.
Photo of a rose bush Amanda planted in memory of her mother. Look at the heart on the leaf!
How grief found Susan
Rob. Doyle. Jean Pierre. Bill. Greg.
Rob was a first for me. I had been doing volunteer work in the area of HIV/AIDS for some time but had never met someone living with HIV. Not only was he the first person whom I met who was HIV positive, he was the first person I knew to die of it.
Photo by Susan Cadell of a framed Picasso poster gifted back to Susan by Bill upon his death.
Surrendering to My Grief One Step at a Time
Grief has been a journey best travelled on foot for me. Walking helped me navigate through my mother’s unexpected illness and eventual death in 2021. Often, I strolled through the neighbouring streets of the hospice where my mom spent her last months, seeking solace from the looming reality of her impending death. The day I received the call of her passing, my husband suggested a walk in one of my favourite urban parks. Unsure of what else to do, I laced up my shoes and mustered the energy to put one foot in front of the other.
Photo by Sarah Burm
My Grief is on Full Display
My grief is on full display daily. I have been wearing my grief, in a variety of forms, for the past 22 years. When my son died just hours after he was born, his tiny body was taken in a bassinet to the morgue and I was told that I was free to go home. I had to collect my bag, my clothes, my hopes and dreams, and leave the hospital without him.
Falling leaves marking time
Falling leaves marking time. Autumn is the hardest season for me. It can be a melancholy time in the northern hemisphere, with leaves changing colour and sweaters coming out of storage. In Canada, I physically steel myself for the holing up I will do over the next few months as I turn up the thermostat, get out the couch throws, and change to flannel bedsheets.
Photo by Karolina Bobek