Maureen Pollard interviews Cheryl about her experience of loss after being on a long and challenging road with her husband who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and battled addiction, both of which affected his behaviour and their relationship. They discuss how, for the last year of his life, Cheryl was filled with shame, isolation and embarrassment, and how after he died she suffered from survivors guilt and her own life ended up in a downward spiral. Cheryl talks about how much she benefited from grief counseling and from joining support groups for spouses of addicts. They also discuss how joining a choir during the tumultuous times helped Cheryl - "for that 1 1/2 to 2 hours a week it literally saved me because, you know, you're out of self, you are out of that self-absorption, whether it's self-pity, whether it's grief, whether it's whatever, there's a focus on something else".

Losing a Husband to Drug Overdose - Cheryl

Maureen Pollard interviews Kailey Bradley, a licensed professional Counselor in the state of Ohio, who specializes in grief therapy. They discuss a different type of grief - one that stems from infertility and chronic illness. Kailey talks about how she has had to grieve her life, and her future as she once imagined it, after being diagnosed with infertility as well as a chronic illness and an immune deficiency. She talks about how there are always new moments of coming to terms with her infertility, like when she became an aunt for example. She also discusses the challenges of navigating the pandemic with an immune deficiency, and how these experiences have impacted her spirituality. "Illness.. totally.. the maps that I had about how the world operated before navigating illness just didn't work anymore, so at that point I think you have these shattered assumptions and you piece together a new kind of paradigm or schema, and it's very painful work. But I'm grateful for that work, and I think my spirituality is much more mature and more nuanced and more grey now than it ever has been."

Kailey Bradley (Counselor) on Infertility Grief

Maureen Pollard interviews Tracee Dunblazier, a Spiritual Empath, Shaman and award-winning Author of 'Transformative Grief: An Ancient Ritual of Healing for Modern Times' about every day grief. They discuss the importance of dedicated grieving time, of spending time with your grief, whatever you are grieving. Tracee talks about how there is every day grief: "Grief is not just about loss. We experience transitions on a daily basis, our need and ability to pivot in a situation. The coffee machine broke and now I have to go out and get coffee, because I have to have coffee, right? So we have these parameters in our life and sometimes we are required to pivot from the habits that we've created and that causes an emotional transition which is grief. So when you can recognize that, recognize that during your day you can have 20 of those, and that that builds up, so if you will give yourself a 5 minute inventory at the end of the evening or before you go to bed to really sit and breathe and recognize all the times you had to transition during your day.. give yourself the opportunity to release that energy and process how you dealt with it."

Check out Tracee's book here: http://www.amazon.com/Transformative-Grief-Ancient-Ritual-Healing

Tracee Dunblazier (Spiritual Empath, Author) on Grief

Maureen Pollard interviews Betsy about losing her adopted son to cancer on Mother's Day weekend. They discuss the grief and loss her son had already been through in his young life, and how powerful and beautiful it was for him to then have Betsy by his side, supporting him through his cancer journey and loving him at the end of his life. Betsy talks about how much expressive arts and creativity helped him, and how talented he was: "So many things that he [drew] were those kinds of expressions of what he was feeling scared about, but also very joyful things that would get hung around our room ... We would hang his artwork off IV poles and on the backs of calendars and things on the wall just as kind of proof of life that we were existing and that he was flourishing in a strange way, even in a hospital setting he was creating and living." They also discuss the challenges of anticipatory grief that shifts into grief of loss, how Betsy struggled with her identity being a single woman who adopted and then lost a child, and how talking about him and sharing his story has helped her to feel purpose and identity confirmation.

Losing a Son to Cancer - Betsy (Part 1)

Maureen Pollard interviews Vicky about losing her husband to myeloma, after surviving prostate and bladder cancer. They discuss the challenge of not having a cancer clinic where they lived, meaning they had to for drive hours back and forth for treatment. They spent so much money on hotels that they ended up having to leave their home and move closer to the clinic, adding an additional struggle of maneuvering their new apartment stairs in his state of illness. 
She talks about how her physical and mental health was affected as his health deteriorated, but she could still only see him with love and hope. "He's in the hospital and, this is before he died, and I stopped eating when he stopped eating. I lost 30 pounds, I wouldn't even get up to go seek water, all I could do was hold his hands and break down. And, he was so strong you know ... He wasn't getting better and I did not see that. I look at pictures now and I see how ill he was, but it's true when you look at someone through the eyes of love you don't see the illness, all you see is that beautiful face that you adore. My husband was everything to me, I mean our story was a love story." 
They also discuss how her friend Karen took her in after she lost everything (her home, her husband, and her own will to live) and how the Universe brought her a new friend who understood what she was going through. 
Both of these women lifted her up and helped her through the darkest time in her life, as did a song that her husband wrote while he was sick which you can listen to here (performed by John Sharkey): http://itunes.apple.com/album/id1715659192?ls=1&app=itunes

Losing a Husband to Cancer - Vicky

Maureen Pollard once again interviews Betsy about losing her adopted son to cancer. In part 2 of this discussion, Betsy continues to talk about the way that expressive arts was helpful both in the end of her son's life, as well as in Betsy's own grief. "All through the 4 years that he was dealing with cancer, each day I began to realize more and more he really had some artistic talent. But he also just drew strength. I used to call it 'The Beautiful Distraction' because he was such a traumatized young man in many ways, and to have something to keep his mind off a procedure he was about to have - it could be a simple blood draw, it could be a major amputation - but to keep his hands moving, building, painting, sketching and drawing was important every step of the way, all the way through to his death."

You can listen to Part 1 here: https://soundcloud.com/griefstories/79-betsy-fisher/

Losing a Son to Cancer - Betsy (Part 2)

Maureen Pollard interviews Emily Wisser, Founder of The Grief Collective, about her experiences with grief. Emily lost her father to cancer when she was 19, and she discusses the contrast between enjoying being away at college for the first time, while at home her father was battling brain cancer and how isolating that felt for her. She talks about the ways the sadness stood out in her grief experience when she moved back home years after he passed, being in the place where her memories of him lived. They also discuss how therapy, as well as an art class helped her to heal. "Having that time, a few times a week, to just quiet your mind and sit down with some charcoal or some ink and a big sheet of paper, it was, I think, really therapeutic to me. Especially when I was, you know, really confronting some of that anxiety, it did help me have moments where I was able to just get in touch with more of that sense of calm."

Emily Wisser (Founder of The Grief Collective) on Grief

Maureen Pollard interviews Missy McLean, a Registered Social Worker and Community Organizer who works with people impacted by the toxic drug crisis, homelessness and poverty. They discuss the idea of 'Community Grief'. "When someone dies from a toxic drug poisoning, it hits people who use drugs really hard because we know that in this moment, the way the toxic drug supply is, that it's like russian roulette every time folks are using to a certain degree .. it's really, it's a marginalized grief ... like a disenfranchised grief. And so I was thinking, like, wow if we were in this space and this was a group of students let's say, and they had lost one of their piers, we would see the parachuting in of grief counselors, of crisis workers, of people to wrap around these students and to acknowledge their loss and sit with them in their pain and work with them on strategies to process their grief and how they're going to cope with this loss and all of these things. And you know how many crisis workers and grief counselors were brought to the community centre to sit with the folks who lost their friend? Not one. I've seen that neglect and that disenfranchised grief play out in a lot of different ways in our communities, especially working with folks who use drugs - who use criminalized drugs I should say - and who are experiencing homelessness; where they lose someone who was so close to them, right, because a lot of the folks when they are street involved and when they are using criminalized drugs, they are each other's family. They are each others network of support and survival, and so those losses, they cut deep but they're not recognized in the same way."

Missy McLean (Registered Social Worker, Community Organizer) on Community Grief

Maureen Pollard interviews Monique about her experience of losing her twin to cancer; how hard it was to come to terms with what was happening to her sister's body while watching her deteriorate and how that trauma stayed with her. "It took years after her death for me - I understand that rumination is part of your brain processing, you can't process everything at once so you ruminate, your brain is just.. trying to just let you digest what's just happened to you. Post traumatic stress and survivor guilt, and of course being a twin and wondering.. I had never been alone before ... the bond that we had was so close, that even though we weren't always together, the nakedness that I felt - and I will use this phrase for your viewers, 'singleton' which is something I learned post-her death from other twins." Monique recommends to anyone who knows a twin or has experienced early twin loss to find support at https://twinlesstwins.org. They also discuss Monique's digital memoir project, "With Every Brush Stroke" which you can check out here: https://www.witheverybrushstroke.com

Losing a Twin to Cancer - Monique

Real people sharing their stories of loss and the insights that help them on their journey with grief.

“Helping grief make sense one story at a time”

Hosted by Maureen Pollard 

Maureen Pollard is a Registered Social Worker who has worked in the field of social work since 1991. In private practice since 2011, Maureen is a specialist in traumatic bereavement, helping individuals, families and groups navigate life after losses, including pregnancy and infant loss, child death, suicide loss, homicide loss and sudden or accidental death. Maureen is a certified Compassionate Bereavement Care provider, and she is trained in RTS (Resolve Through Sharing) Bereavement Care.

Maureen’s practice areas also include work as a certified Compassion Fatigue Specialist and Educator, supporting front line professionals in building the resilience necessary to survive and thrive in high-stress, trauma-exposed work.

Losing a Husband to Drug Overdose - Cheryl

Grief Stories

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