Blog

From our first moments in this life, food plays a central role. Food evokes feelings and memories. Cultures around the world celebrate holidays and important life events with specific dishes. Most people can instantly name their favourite foods, and for many of us, making someone their special meal is an act of love. Food is comfort. Food is survival. Food is health. Food is strength. Food is a love language. Photo from Wix. When someone is diagnosed with a life-limiting illn

Dear Friends, The book Grief is Love by Marisa Renee Lee is one that I have bought and started reading two times, before having someone...

Dear Friends, I wanted to recommend a book I recently read- It’s Ok That You’re Not Ok by Megan Devine. Devine is a psychotherapist who...

Dear Friends, I read the book Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss and The Heartbreaking Path of Grief  by Dr. Joanne Cacciatoreafter...

Dear Friends, I have come across this book on grieving that contains several of the challenges that cause grievers heartache. The book ...

I had never heard of a death doula until the winter of 2016 when I attended my first Death Café in Guelph. The facilitator was a local death doula who, as a trained professional, provided companionship, emotional support, and assistance with end-of-life planning to individuals and their families. Her attitude struck me; she didn’t shy away from hard questions but was on a mission to celebrate life! I was inspired! For those that don’t know, a Death Café is where people from a

Dear Friends, I would like to introduce you to a not-so-ordinary book about death called Will my Cat Eat my Eyeballs? The book is a collection of 35 questions dealing with corpses and their possible, likely or unlikely fate. The author, Caitlin Doughty, is a mortician, funeral owner, podcaster and videographer who puts death in the main focus of all she does. Her research and presentation of facts is historically fact checked, medically accurate and presented blunt, honest, f

Cleaning the space of a hoarder… but wait, I was always told he was “collecting.”Cleaning anyone’s home after they die is a daunting...

Dear Friends,  Young children have important questions about death and need supportive adults. It’s never too early to begin the...

The medical model of care is focused on writing invoices, billing medications and not to say the least try to keep people from dying....

Dear Friends, Do you: love a good romance story?  want to learn some super interesting facts about Egypt and tombs? like quantum physics...

In honour of Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day, HHA is sharing the following post from Tammy Elliott about her journey with grief...

With life there is the guarantee of death.  Normally, we float through our life without a thought to the end of our journey.  Sure, we...

One big issue with the end-of-life industry is the lack of interest in it on a grand scale. People, organizations, funders, and governing...

I watched the paramedics lift my mother like a dead weight from her recliner chair onto the gurney. I knew she was dying. I wished and I...

Dear Friends, If I had come across the book The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer in my teenage years my life would have been a lot...

Life has a way of taking you to unexpected places sometimes, which is certainly true for my journey as a death doula candidate through...

I have known for many years that our medical system is broken. So deeply broken, but today...today I felt lost and hopeless, alongside...

When someone is living with the effects of trauma, mental illness, or substance dependence, especially in the context of precarious...

Dear Friends, I am deeply passionate about my personal journey to becoming a death doula. Before I began the Home Hospice Association...