Losing Both Parents - Gillian

Maureen Pollard interviews Gillian who, at only 28 years old, has experienced the loss of both of her parents. They discuss the contrasting challenges between slowly losing her father to cancer (predictable loss) and suddenly losing her mother to pneumonia (unpredictable loss) just ten years later. They talk about the drastic differences between how she grieved outwardly for her Dad in what she defined as a healthy way - channeling grief through positive things - versus how grieving for her Mom was completely inward: "it never felt like there was a place to put my grief, there was that feeling of being a little frozen and maybe a little bit numb". They also discuss how there is no right way to grieve, how important it is to give yourself the permission to mourn people differently and to meet each loss with the kind of grief that suits you and serves you.