by Cheryl Parker It’s November 30, 1998. I’m at Sick Kids Hospital in Toronto, Ontario. My eight-year-old daughter Rachel has been transferred here two hours ago after spending the night at Ajax Hospital due to a flu bug she has been fighting for a week. The doctors haven’t figured out why Rachel is so […]
by Shandi Pace Like many others, Duane Kitchen had an abnormally rough year in 2020. On July 19, 2020, his mother, Marlene, unexpectedly passed away at the age of 54. She had been experiencing problems with her heart and was two weeks away from having open heart surgery to fix some clogged arteries. It […]
by Angelika Martin I am no stranger to grief. The love of my life, my husband, and my best friend has joined my other loved ones who have already dearly departed. These include my brother who had a heart attack at 36 years old, while my mum and my best friend both had cancer. […]
by LaCharmine Jefferson At the start of 2015, I was excited about planning what was to be my Fabulous and Fortieth birthday party in October. My vision was a family cruise. It would have been a long-awaited second cruise for my husband Kevin and me. Unfortunately, a medical diagnosis would change everything. It was […]
by Visnupreya Chandrarajah Death and dying are natural processes of the human experience. In my opinion, the only thing unnatural is that more often than not, those subjects are commonly swept under the rug because it’s uncomfortable. We push the gut-wrenching topics away while we carry on in our hurried routine-packed daily lives. That […]
by James LaVeck What if I were to tell you I was grateful for losing my husband? Would I sound callous? Inhuman? Heartless? What if I were to tell you I was grateful for losing two? How would you describe me then? The truth of the matter is, I am grateful, and let me […]
by LaSandra Hutchinson In 1997, Kenneth Hutchinson began to sit behind me in our World History class. I knew Kenneth was smart and articulate, but I had yet to find out how hilarious he was. Oh, but after he began to sit behind me in class. There were jokes for days! He was sitting […]
by John Hermle In 2004, when I was 16 years old, I watched my grandmother die in the hospital alongside my other family members. I didn’t realize until years later, but this was a jumping-off point for when my mental health began to decline. I became a lot more introverted and reserved than I […]
by Shandi Pace Claire Bidwell Smith had an extremely difficult life as a young adult. Both of her parents were diagnosed with cancer months after each other when she was just 14 years old. Her mother ended up passing when she was 18, and her father when she was 25. She had only lived […]
by Rosemary Keevil Grief is physical. Grief grabs you and keeps you in its clutches. Grief comes at you and punches you in the stomach. And just like those punches, the initial jab being the most powerful. Then it wavers a bit in its intensity, grief in the long term softens with time. But […]
