Mother's Day. A day of "shoulds" for many. You "should" be happy. You "should" be celebrating. Your Mum "should" still be here. You "should" be able to call yourself a Mum by now. You "should" have your child with you today. Your relationship with your Mum "should" feel simple and warm and card-aisle easy. I'm sorry if today holds some of those "shoulds" for you. I also want to say, before Sunday arrives, that I understand this as a human, not only as a grief professional. T

A personal reflection on loss, common humanity, and what it means to sit in the rubble. Candle burning in honour of Jeremy This month, my family experienced our own loss. The death of someone we love; Jeremy. It's hard to put into words what the past days, weeks, and month have been like. So much time to grieve, to reflect, to feel, to connect, and to sit in absolute gratitude to have known a soul so great that his absence now causes such pain. And then came that moment. The

Kids grieve differently. Their age shapes how they make sense of loss, but make no mistake, children grieve from a very young age, even when they don't have the words for it. I watch this unfold in my work all the time. A three-year-old who keeps asking where Grandpa is. A seven-year-old who suddenly won't go to school. A ten-year-old who's angry at everyone and doesn't know why. The urge to protect What I often see is adults trying to shield kids from grief. It makes sense.

There's a can of hairspray that lives in my house. It sits on a shelf, gathering dust, untouched by my own hair. Yet I keep buying it, this exact brand, this specific variation, over and over again. 🪷 This was my Nanna's scent. 🪷 She wore this particular hairspray, always. She died when I was 18, and yet this smell still holds everything: the love, the loss, the ache of missing her, the doorway into my grief. Just the other day, as I took a photo of that familiar can, I spr