Your Stories

Experiencing the death of someone close can be one of the most profoundly significant moments in life. Our unique responses to these powerful moments helps shed light on the richness and complexity of the human experience. 

The Canadian Virtual Hospice welcomes your stories about life-threatening illness, loss or grief. You may want to celebrate a life, release some deeply felt emotions, or you may find meaning and connection in seeing what others have to share.  You can submit your story in French or in English and have your own words included here.

By Anne Sutherland   Romaine Ardizzon was given a prognosis of three months to live when she was first diagnosed with lung cancer. She hung on for 13 months to see her life's dream complete, the recording and production of an album titled Plus loin queue l'azur . She died on Jan. 5 at the age of 54.
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I wanted to share a small tradition that I had started when my youngest of 4 children passed away at 2 days old. December of 1991 I gave birth to identical twin boys when I was only 27 weeks pregnant. Needless to say they were very small and had a very low life expectancy. Miraculously the elder of the...
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I was an academic for more than 30 years, a social/developmental psychologist, with a focus on aging and death and dying and am now retired. As an academic and scientist, I was concerned with and relied upon evidence in the search for truth and realities about what I believed are important issues of...
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By Kim Grant   One of my favorite questions used to be "So how many children do you have? " I would typically respond with a broad smile that "I have 2 daughters and one son! " That simple question changed to one of unease, apprehension, fear and sadness after my 23 year old daughter Karalee passed away...
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By Mitch Miyagawa Photography by Cathie Archbould.   In a little cottage in downtown Whitehorse, talking about death brings people back to life. It’s a house for the dying and their families and friends. It’s for people who feel lost because they’ve lost someone. But you’d never know it from the outside.
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By Suzanne Ahearne All the lights in the living room had been turned off for the night; all except for the piano light. The head of this brass lamp had been rotated backward, throwing soft light on the wall behind it. The piano was now nothing more than a dark mass in a darkened room.   I was lying on...
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