“As a death doula, I often say that sitting at the bedside of the dying is one of the greatest privileges of my life. Their final wishes, tears, joys, and wisdom have given me the tools for living a meaningful life. In fact, the dying have been my greatest teachers.” Diane R. Button is … Read more
Death can shatter a family. And when that family includes children, it can be even harder. It can be a challenge to know how to begin to help those young hearts heal. In Salt Lake City, Utah, the Sharing Place provides a safe space for kids and their families to come together, to know they are not … Read more
Johanna Lunn’s father, Jim, died when she was young. Years later, facing a crisis in her life, she wished for her father’s advice. So she decided to invite his memory to dinner. In her short animated film, Dinner With Dad, Johanna talks about this ritual of remembrance. She made an old favourite, the Lunn Family … Read more
For Amy Soloway (Solowij), being in the kitchen with her mother, Eveleen is a cherished memory. It was filled with laughter, lessons and of course, good food. Her mother embraced the Ukrainian culture of her husband, passing on recipes and traditions and memories. Making food and my mother has always been synonymous for me. … Read more
Many animal lovers will leave provisions to care for their furry friends. And for some, that’s more than your average kibble. Meet Gunther. Well, actually, Gunther the 6th. He may seem like an ordinary dog, but this German Shepherd is worth $500 million! In 1992, Karlotta Leibenstein who was a German Countess, left her … Read more
My earliest memories are of my Grandmother, Fairy Belle. She was very present in our lives and for a time, lived with us. I remember coming home from school and watching Another World and All My Children (or as she called them, her “stories”). But mostly I remember her in the kitchen. My love of … Read more
Spring cleaning has become almost a biological ritual. The winter has gone, the windows are open and we suddenly want to give the house a freshening up. We wash, we dust, we sort. Some things are tossed or re-homed. But what if we cleaned, not with the birth of a new season in mind, but use our own death as motivation instead.
Holidays can be difficult when you are missing and grieving someone. But it seems a bit harder when it’s your mom. Usually it is our mothers who organize family dinners and events, so when she’s gone, how do we approach the holiday without her? The folks at Cake have a website of resources and tools to help with grief and end of life and general “navigating mortality”.
“Tattooing one’s grief can be an act of resistance to the notion that grief can or should be cured … The act of tattooing suggests that grief is permanent and that it is life-long, visible, and always present.” For some, memorializing their loved one with a tattoo is a way to keep a part … Read more
We are living in a sad and confusing time, especially for a child. From COVID to the Ukraine, we are saturated with loss. And even if your child has been spared the horrors of the nightly news, the odds are they will experience, at some point, the death of a pet or grandparent or family member or friend or teacher or…. Grief and loss are part of life, but how do we talk to our children about it?
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