Would You Join A Grief Club

Emma Winterschladen found a new generation changing the way we deal with loss

- Emma Winterschladen

When you suffer loss, there is the before and the after. There is a line you cross, a door you walk through, never to return. You become, abruptly, part of ‘The Club’ – one you didn’t ask to join. After my mum, Jenny, died when I was 16, I wasn’t only grieving for her and the memories we shared, but also those I would never get to make.

I wanted to talk about it, but for so long I didn’t know how to, or to whom. Few of my contemporaries had experienced similar loss. Then, when I was 19 and on a boat trip in Australia, a chance meeting with another motherless daughter proved a lifeline. The friendship cracked me open, forcing me to feel a sadness I had been too scared to feel, before stitching me back up again. But, for years, we only had each other, sharing long letters, late-night WhatsApp chats and drunken heart-to-hearts– a secret-grief gang of two.

Thirteen years after my mum died, the conversation around grief is, fortunately, starting to open up. Prince Harry spoke publicly about the effects of ‘shutting down’ his emotions for 20 years after his mother, Princess Diana, died. Comedian Cariad Lloyd, who lost her dad when she was 15, now hosts the award-winning podcast Griefcast, where she interviews high-profile actors and comics about their losses. Meanwhile, Marie Curie has launched the Life Café initiative. Anyone can hold a Life Café – this is a guided space to have meaningful conversations about death and dying.