‘A little less lonely’: Dal professor invites people to attend N.S. grief festival

Nova Scotians have been through a lot since the start of the pandemic.

A provincewide lockdown due to COVID-19, a mass shooting that claimed 22 lives, the Cyclone helicopter crash where six people died, two large wildfires that resulted in hundreds of homes lost and a recent flood that claimed the lives of four people.

The weight of those tragedies, as well as people losing family and friends due to other circumstances, has resulted in many feeling a lot of grief.

That’s when Mary Ellen Macdonald had the idea to host a weeklong grief festival.

“People, especially post-pandemic, are really struggling with this stuff and want to talk about this stuff.”

– Mary Ellen Macdonald

Macdonald, the endowed chair of palliative care research at Dalhousie University, said she “felt like the time is now” to launch the inaugural Good Grief, Nova Scotia! festival.

“People, especially post-pandemic, are really struggling with this stuff and want to talk about this stuff. They’re looking for a place that’s comfortable and not feel judgment,” Macdonald said in an interview Monday.

So Macdonald is hoping to give people a safe space to come together and experience grief together.

The festival doesn’t just focus on people who have lost a loved one at a hospital or clinical setting.

There will be a range of activities for different types of grief, such as people who have lost a pet, children who are grieving, people who lost belongings in an event or health-care professionals who have lost a patient.

There will also be academic activities, such as an international panel that will discuss how other countries handle grief.

“We didn’t curate or choreograph the events at all,” Macdonald explained.

“We just said we need to be talking about loss and these things popped up.”

And Macdonald is open to adding more events to the schedule. People who have an idea for an event they would like to host are encouraged to submit a Google form to the group. Or if someone has an idea about an event they would like to see, Macdonald encouraged them to email the group.

“The website is changing daily,” she said.

For Macdonald, she’s intrigued to see how people grieve in different ways, like how people do in Tatamagouche, where they get together for “weave and grieve,” a potluck, followed by crocheting, held at the local church every Friday night.

“This is what I love. We have so many different villages and communities in this province where there are so many great examples already, so this is about surfacing those ideas,” Macdonald said.

“I think Nova Scotia does (grieve) very well. . . . We’ve been around the block, we know what to do. This is then just making more of what’s already working.”

Macdonald said she knows the festival won’t cure people’s grief and admits it may be intimidating for some.

“The thing about grief is we’re not trying to solve it and we’re not going to fix it. You’re not going to walk away going, ‘I’m happy now.’ But this is about making it a little less lonely.”

The festival is to run from Sept. 23 to 30, with events taking part mostly in Halifax, as well as online. Some activities will be free but require registration, while others will require people to purchase a ticket.

Macdonald encouraged people to attend events with a family member or friend.