Melissa (left) and her mother (right) posing together on Melissa's wedding day (Hermie Ocenar, CMRU.ca).
Death, it’s a universal experience but a taboo topic of discussion. After all, it’s an experience that only the lucky are able to come back from.
While young adults are mostly focused on upcoming milestones like graduation, starting a career, pursuing romantic interests and other personal aspirations, losing a parent is often an event that most individuals would like to save for when they’re ready but certainly not anytime during their emerging adulthood.
YYC Strong Daughters is a Calgary based peer support group whose initiative is to support young women in Calgary who are currently “going through it,” says Melissa Vanderfluit, group leader of Strong Daughters.
A recent study from the Institute for Clinical Social Work finds that young adults who are facing the emotional impact of losing a parent are more likely to view their experience of life as a liminal experience, lacking any excitement and triggering feelings of uncertainty.
A place for understanding and empathy
Strong Daughters provides young women in Calgary a safe place to share and discuss their heartbreaking experiences with grief and how it affects them in their daily lives. The discussions are open to all aspects that come with grief and group goers are encouraged to share their stories in a space free of judgement.
It’s more than five stages
Historically, grief is known to be experienced in 5 stages
- Denial
- Anger
- Bargaining
- Depression
- Acceptance
Since its proposal by Swiss American psychiatrist, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the theory has been criticized over the years as everyone’s experience with grief is different. For some, the grief gets easier as time goes by but for others the grief sticks around for longer, this is known as prolonged grief.
Author’s Reflection:
After the loss of my beloved mother in 2022, I realized that there aren’t many resources for young adults who were currently going through the same thing I was. My grief was and sometimes still is a lonely experience. Losing my mom was the most heartbreaking experience of my life and it’s an event that I will think about for a long time. Prior to finding Strong Daughters I hadn’t known of any other young adults who have also lost a parent to lung cancer, the online articles I would find were all aimed towards how to support children from the ages of ten to sixteen.
During my time meeting with Melissa and partaking in my first grief group session, I knew immediately that the initiative of this group is one that I want to showcase. I was a little anxious to share my own story with the group out of fear of oversharing or accidentally triggering someone but by the end of the session I had left feeling like I had finally found a group of people who understood exactly what I was going through.
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