Let's talk about Grief

Why do we find it so difficult to speak to someone when they are bereaved? We are all going to be in that position at some point in our lives but we appear to avoid that thought all costs. When my husband Steve died earlier this year, I could see the difficulty on people’s faces trying to find the words to speak to me. 

Although he had been ill with kidney failure for a few years he had gone into hospital for a live donor transplant so it was a shock when he died suddenly under anaesthetic.  

In my professional life I provide mental health awareness training, I feel that the lack of positive language we have around mental health impacts on people starting a MH conversation as they fear saying the wrong thing and as I have found this year we seem to have the same problems around grief.  Read More 

Making a choice you never wanted to make- funerals

What is it about funeral directors that makes them fit into two equally awful categories that means an already overwhelming task feel almost impossible? 

When my husband, Steve died this year, I was determined to do a funeral I wanted, nothing too out of the ordinary, although you would have thought I was asking for the earth. Instead of just using the first funeral directors I found, (why are they even called funeral directors the whole thing makes me feel I have gone back to Victorian times.) Anyway, as I was saying I decided to visit a few places to find somewhere that I felt listened to me and I felt comfortable to carry out this important task alongside the family and I.