Maureen Pollard interviews Dvora Entin, a licensed social worker specializing in maternal wellness and bereavement care in the Orthodox Jewish community. They discuss the fact that grief is ever-present and ever-changing.

The Truth About Grief: Can you get over grief?

Maureen Pollard interviews Kathryn Monaco Douglas, widow and founder of the group Widowed, Not alone. They discuss secondary losses and the many changes that happen for the bereaved person when a person dies.

The Truth About Grief: Grief includes losses beyond the death of a person.

Maureen Pollard interviews Carla about her experience of losing her mother - who she did not have a good relationship with - to a brain aneurysm, and how hard it was to see her in intensive care knowing she was not going to wake up; knowing she would not get another chance to improve their relationship. They discuss how much more complicated the grieving process became when Carla's Canadian Citizenship was approved - how excited she was about this new life she had been dreaming of, at the same time as being devastated over the loss of her mother: "I was so sad and so happy all at the same time and it was so hard for me to make sense of it". Carla opens up about how, after moving to Canada, she started pushing her feelings of grief away, not allowing herself to be sad because she did not know how to navigate the new health system, and how this lead to panic attacks. They also discuss how returning home to Brazil would make her grieving process feel chaotic with everything reminding her of her mother, but that there was a new powerful connection between her and her siblings after experiencing such a loss together, something she had never felt with them before.

Losing a Mother - Carla

Maureen Pollard interviews Mary Krause, social media specialist for Crossroads Hospice. They talk about how important it is for people to have permission to talk about their experiences, as well as to have facts about death, dying and grief, allowing them to make informed choices.

The Truth About Grief: People need information and resources at the end of life and in grief.

Maureen Pollard interviews Lysa Toye, social worker and expressive arts therapist with a private practice focused on trauma, dissociative disorders and grief. They discuss fact that trauma is different than grief, that both trauma and grief can influence how we are doing and how we act, which is an important perspective in healing.

The Truth About Grief: When grief intersects with trauma

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 Adele Racine, Heart Medicine Woman about the strengths that we find in circle with life as we face and move through the experience and pain of grief and loss.

The Truth About Grief: Is grief a sign of weakness?

Maureen Pollard interviews Lyss about her experience of losing her mother to cancer as a teenager, and of losing three pregnancies on her journey to becoming a mother herself. Lyss describes how it felt like these were 'bookend losses' in a way, having lost her mom when she was young only to go through early miscarriages as an adult. They discuss how important therapy has been in her healing process, and how finding her current Psychotherapist - one that offers Inner Child Work which Lyss highly recommends to anyone who experienced childhood trauma - was a pivotal point in her life. They also discuss how crucial it was for her to hold onto the things she loved, the interests that kept her busy while grieving - "I think when you're used to grief or feelings like it, you're always waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's hard to believe that good things can be good, so I see a lot of people cutting themselves off from things they enjoy because they're scared to let themselves enjoy those things" - and how her miscarriages taught her to be okay with celebrating when she finally gave birth to her first healthy child.

Losing a Mother to Cancer - Lyss

Maureen Pollard interviews Eric Lichtenfeld, a psychotherapist who specializes in grief, trauma and anxiety. They talk about the idea of continuing bonds and how we hold our loved ones close to us after death.

The Truth About Grief: Does death end a relationship?

Maureen Pollard interviews Marija Padjen, director for the centre of innovation and campus mental health. They discuss the ways that loss and grief impact us beyond the death of a person, including loss of roles, identity, relationships and material resources.

The Truth About Grief: Is grief only associated with the death of a person?

Maureen Pollard interviews Adrianna about her experience of losing her brother to suicide. They discuss how, after her father delivered the news about her brother's death, she ended up losing everything she owned - everything but the cat. "All of a sudden I found myself at my father's home that night, at my family home, and didn't really know how I got there. And that night, I've nicknamed that night 'the day that I lost everything, everything but my cat' because there was this blow up where I lost my brother, the family dynamic, and the timeline that I thought I was in, and catapulted into grief and bereavement. But then I also had complicated grief, and compounded grief, where my partner left that night, and in doing so I lost my apartment, I lost my way of life, so I lost a lot, and for me it was really important that I keep my cat."

Adrianna is a storyteller: telling her story of grief and bereavement to educate and support those around her in grief literacy and suicide prevention for over 10 years. Her one-woman bereavement piece “Everything but the Cat…” tours schools and theatres throughout the Ontario and Quebec region to bring mental health awareness to communities about suicide loss and mental health. 
Adrianna is a safeTALK Trainer as well, and has her Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST). She offers a suicide alert 3.5 hour workshop as a way to empower audiences to be a member of a suicide safer community. 
A recent graduate of the End of Life Doula program at Douglas College, Adrianna is also is a volunteer Hospice Care Companion and Bereavement Facilitator at Hospice Toronto.

To know more about her grief journey please visit: www.adrianna-prosser.com/

Losing a Brother to Suicide - Adrianna

Maureen Pollard interviews musician and music therapist Adrienne Pringle about music, grief, and the ways people can use music to explore and express emotion, particularly during their grieving process. "There's always that 'aha' moment, that realization, and for some people it's thinking 'well I need to be a musician, I need to be able to play something and if I don't have those skills then this isn't for me' and that just isn't true. Music can actually be a really helpful resource to anyone: using it for mindfulness, for finding inner calm ... using your voice even."

Adrienne Pringle (Musician, Music Therapist) on Grief and Music

Maureen Pollard interviews Bryan about his experience of losing his father as a child to gun violence. They discuss the impact of such a confusing loss on his developing brain, how it created a lot of anxiety in him, causing him to become panicky in new situations. Bryan talks about how much the support of those around him, especially his mother, was instrumental in helping him deal with the tragedy. They also discuss how playing sports gave him an outlet to drive his passions and form connections that made him feel safe and kept him going. "Having my teammates and also their parents on the stands, just so much support out there, is what was making it so great just to continue to go back and to continue playing those sports." 

Bryan created a website called ThisIsWhy.Life as a community for people who have lost a parent, you can visit Bryan's website at https://www.thisiswhy.life

Losing a Father - Bryan

Maureen Pollard interviews Meg about her experience of losing her mother during the pandemic, and the difficulties around visitation and care because of the quarantine protocols, especially while she lived in the United States and her mother was in Canada. Meg talks about the struggles with all of the 'what if' questions she asked herself, wondering if the outcome could have been different if she was able to be with her mother sooner, as well as the challenges of trying to navigate and understand the health care system in a different country, and then of hosting a virtual funeral. They also discuss how grateful she is that she was actually able to be with her mother in-person before she passed: "I think I felt lucky at the time, because I knew people in the States whose family had died who were not able to see them at all, never saw them, they died alone. I felt so lucky that I was able to be in the room with her, and hold her hand."

Losing a Mother - Meg

Maureen Pollard interviews John D. Martin, author of I Can't Stop Crying and Help Me I Hurt, about grief. "Grief is so much bigger than I had imagined. It doesn't work very well with a formula, it's important to pay attention to what each person is telling you. I think something that I learned probably over the last 5 years is that emotional pain is every bit as significant as physical pain and yet we don't give it nearly as much credence or credibility or spend nearly as much time and energy towards it." 

You can find John's books here: www.goodreads.com/author/list/26155.John_D_Martin

John Martin (Author) on Grief

Maureen Pollard interviews Shannon Ortiz, a Clinician and founder of Light After Loss at the Hope and Healing Centre about her experiences of loss, grief, and her work in suicide prevention as well as the support for survivors of suicide loss. "Had I not heard those words ['you can heal from trauma'] we probably wouldn't even be sitting here. Those words I needed to hear to kind of flip the switch ... I am not special, I know people get all upset when I say that, I'm not special! Your brain is my brain, and resetting the fight or flight and doing the body-based work in trauma, it works for all of us."

Shannon Ortiz (Clinician and founder of Light After Loss) on Grief

Maureen Pollard interviews Mali Munroe, Registered Art Therapist and Author of Acceptance: A Personal Journey of Self Discovery, about her own experience of  losing her father to cancer, and about her work in grief and loss with children. "Oftentimes when people go into it they become isolated, they think 'I'm the only person going through this', and people become their own islands of isolation or loss or grief, and where healing happens is where you can meet another person and say 'hey, this is what happened for me' and that person says 'wow you know what, that happened for me, and this is how it's affected me, this is how I dealt with it' and all that." 

You can visit Mali's website to learn more: www.munroe.life

Mali Munroe (Author, Registered Art Therapist) on Grief

Maureen Pollard interviews Kim Libertini, Co-Founder of The Goodgrief App - The Social Network for Loss, about her experience of compound grief, and the inability to connect in grief groups and individual therapy until she met an important friend with whom she created this App in order to help others going through the same disconnect. 

The Goodgrief App is a social network where grieving people can privately connect, chat, and support each other in finding a new normal. It’s available on iOS, Android and the web. 
You can learn more here: www.blog.goodgriefapp.com

Kim Libertini (Co-Founder of The Goodgrief App) on Grief

Maureen Pollard interviews Mitchell Consky, Author of Home Safe: A Memoir of End-of-Life Care during Covid-19, about his experience of losing his father to cancer during the pandemic and how he and his family coped with their grief. "I think most of the time when someone we love is dying, there's still all of the pressures of the outside world, we still have to surrender to the hustle and bustle. But what made this experience so beautiful and surreal and bittersweet was the fact that we really had nowhere else that we needed to be. I'm a journalist, and so I leaned into my journalistic intuitions and I interviewed my dad throughout his decline ... My dad never really told many stories about his past, he lost both of his parents when he was really young and he never really was able to articulate that pain and his grief until he was dying himself. So through exploring his own grief he was also able to ultimately accept his own mortality and it was this incredible experience and all these beautiful bittersweet moments really dove-tailed and punctuated our whole pandemic experience." 

You can find Mitchell's book here: www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/60442737

Mitchell Consky (Author) on Grief

Maureen Pollard interviews Tara McGuire, author of 'Holden After and Before: A
Love Letter for a Son Lost to Overdose', about her experience of losing a child to an accidental opioid overdose at the age of twenty-one, and the stages of grief that followed. "[Integration] makes a lot more sense to me than acceptance. Some things are completely unacceptable. But, I think what I have been doing now that you mention that, is integrating Holden's death into the fabric of my life and my family in a way that can coexist. Sometimes we talk about parallel tracks, like you can have this grief track that you're living and you can also have your life track which can have some joy in it, some peace in it, some progress in it, and the grief is still there beside you."  

Tara's book is referred to as 'a moving meditation on grief: a stunning book that traces Tara McGuire's excavation and documentation of the life path of her son Holden.' and you can find it here: https://taramcguire.com/holden-after-and-before/

Tara McGuire (Author) on Grief

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 Tahmeed and Jadine, Toronto-based Journalists involved in research about communal grief after suicide on University campuses. They discuss their key findings, such as how loneliness is linked to mental and physical health challenges, therefore people who are emotionally supported in grief tend to do and feel better. They also talk about the shared experience and shared struggle of a mental health crisis that students on campus experience when someone dies by suicide. "Bereavement by suicide is a specific type of bereavement that's different from a lot of other types of grief, and it comes with its own unique challenges that sort of shape what psychologists call that grief trajectory, the changing emotional experiences of grief as the days and years go by."

Tahmeed & Jadine (Journalists) on Campus Suicide and Communal 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 Krista about her experience of suicide loss. They discuss the complexities of losing her husband in this way; the challenges in remembering happy times, of having many unanswered questions, and in "remembering his life as so much more than his death". They also discuss the hurdles Krista is constantly jumping in the course of accepting and adjusting to what happened, how important it is to connect with those who can share in her experience of loss, and how "the greatest grief translates to the greatest love for somebody".

Losing a Husband to Suicide - Krista

Maureen Pollard interviews Melissa about her experience of losing her grandmother. They discuss how it sometimes feels more socially appropriate to hide behind a smile when grieving a loss, how feelings of grief are hard to be with, and how it's hard for others to be with us when we're in those feelings. Melissa talks about how she hid behind that 'perfectly packaged grief story' even though grief "is not pretty - it's messy, it's anger, it's sadness, it's heartbreak". They discuss how important it is to connect with other people who are grieving, who will sit with you and allow you to be a mess, and how communities like Grief.org help people to feel less alone in their grief.

Losing a Grandparent - Melissa

Maureen Pollard interviews Michelle about her experience losing both of her parents. They discuss how, after her father was diagnosed with cancer and passed away, Michelle did not deal with her feelings as her role was to help her mother and be her support. Years later, when her mother died unexpectedly, Michelle realized that "all of these pieces that I wasn't able to deal with from my dad, were still sitting there, they were still sitting there as I tried to deal with my mother's death". As a Catholic, Michelle also struggled with feelings of blame due to religious expectations on top of the powerful pain of grief. They also discuss how much it helps to share stories of her parents with her daughter and on platforms like Facebook where she can connect with other people who knew them, as well as the importance of humour to help ease that powerful pain.

Losing Both Parents - Michelle

Maureen Pollard interviews Jill about her experience of suicide loss. They discuss how her son was on the Austism spectrum with high-functioning Aspergers, and how it made it difficult for him to connect with and understand people; and difficult to give and receive love. This led to him struggling, becoming angry, holding emotion in and despite the family's many attempts to help him, he eventually ended up following through with his threats to hurt himself. Jill describes how grief is "a whole body experience, it affects your mind, it affects your body physically" and how she would wake up with panic attacks, consumed with guilt over the fact that she couldn't save her son. They also discuss how she pushed through by deciding she needed to do what her son couldn't - work through and move forward - and how she became very vocal about her grief in order to process it, even when that made others feel uncomfortable, because her son was unable to talk about his feelings.

Losing a Son to Suicide - Jill

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.

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