Grief & Loss
"Grief is what living beings experience when what or whom they love dies or disappears.
Grief is not what people feel when they lose what they want, or lose what they want to happen, or when they don't get what they think they deserve. This is only disappointment. Not the same at all (very important not to confuse with grief).
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Grief is natural; to grieve the loss of what we love is as natural as peeing, eating, singing, dreaming, running, or looking under rocks for bugs to feed your frog.
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More importantly, grieving is necessary; When there is real loss, grieving should never be avoided or postponed; grieving is absolutely necessary. Without grief the world would cease to renew itself; the world would cease to exist.
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Grief is not a preference, for choosing to not have grief when grief is there is to defer and burden someone else with having to do your grieving. This makes the world a sick place."
-from The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise by Martin Prechtel
A website by Megan Driver, psychotherapist and author of the book “It’s OK That You’re Not OK”.
This book is a refreshingly (but also painfully) honest look at the reality of grief. It discusses how grief can change your world and make you feel separate from a cultural context that tends to deny it, how to manage when friends and family don’t know how to support you, things that you can do to live with your grief, and how to find a way forward.
How Do You Help A Grieving Friend
The short 4-minute animation “How do you help a grieving friend” is a very helpful explanation of how to offer support for people who are grieving. It explains how trying to cheer people up generally doesn’t help in the way we hope, but how being there to acknowledge and witness their feelings does. This is good advice for helping in almost any situation and is well worth the time to listen.
Speaking Grief “is a public media initiative aimed at creating a more grief-aware society by validating the experience of grievers and helping to guide those who wish to support them.”
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The website includes videos of people telling their own grief stories, videos of interviews with experts in grief work and grief resources.
“Speaking Grief explores the transformative experience of losing a family member in a grief-avoidant society. It validates grief as a normal, healthy part of the human experience rather than a problem that needs to be “fixed.” It also addresses the role that support from friends and family plays in a person’s grief experience, offering guidance on how to show up for people in their darkest moments.”​​​​
Talking with children and teens about serious illness, dying and death.
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What do I tell the kids? How do I support them?
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KidsGrief.ca is a free online resource that helps parents support their children when someone in their life is dying or has died. It equips parents with the words and confidence needed to help children grieve life’s losses in healthy ways.
Books for Kids & Families about Death and Grief
Books read aloud:
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When Dinosaurs Die: A Guide to Understanding Death by Laurie Krasney Brown and Marc Brown
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Tear Soup: A Recipe for Healing After Loss by Pat Schwiebert and Chuck DeKlyen
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Other books with links for more information/purchase:
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White Raven (Indigenous content – residential school trauma)
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Little Chief and The Gifts of Morning Star by Victor Lethbridge (Indigenous Content)
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Dancing with the Cranes by Jeannette Armstrong (Indigenous Content)
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