Why I Do This Work
The personal journey that led me to become a grief counsellor.
The story I am about to share is deeply personal. I share it not because my grief is more important than anyone else's, but because it explains why I have devoted my life to supporting people through grief and loss.
My hope is that, in reading it, you will know that you are not alone.
My Father's Death Changed Everything
On Sunday, April 25, 1977, my father died by suicide at the age of 48. In an instant, my world was shattered.
My mother was 35. I was 16. My brother was 14.
Overnight, we were left emotionally devastated and financially destitute.
I was the only one at home with my father when he died. I pleaded with him not to leave us, but the emotional and physical pain he was living with overruled all of my appeals.
From that evening onward, the person I had been ceased to exist. My faith in the future disappeared. I struggled to trust, to hope, and to believe that life held anything worth anticipating. I developed coping strategies that helped me survive, but not truly live.
Although I carried on with work, friendships, and daily responsibilities, I moved through life emotionally numb. Any possibility of happiness was overshadowed by the fear of losing it. Attempts by others to get close to me were often met with distance because I no longer believed that love could exist without the certainty of loss.
Beneath it all, I carried a crushing sense of guilt and shame. I believed I had failed to save my father and that somehow I had not been important enough for him to stay alive.
Life continued.
I did not.
Even after seventeen years, I still had no understanding of lifelong grief or the permanent imprint traumatic loss can leave on a person's life. Like many grieving people, I convinced myself that I had "handled it all just fine."
I had not.
It would take another devastating loss before I finally began to understand what grief had done to me.
My Mother's Death Reopened Everything
In 1993, my mother was diagnosed with tracheal cancer. I became her sole caregiver and put my own life on hold throughout her illness.
She died seven and a half months later.
After months of living at the hospital with my mother, I emerged exhausted, isolated, and profoundly changed. Suddenly, as though pulled back through time, my father's death and all the trauma surrounding it became vividly present once again.
Along with my mother's death came a despair so overwhelming that it felt impossible to imagine life ever being meaningful again.
Although friends and family cared deeply, few were able—or willing—to sit with the depth of my grief. I was often met with discomfort, silence, or well-intentioned platitudes.
I felt completely alone.
I wondered whether anyone else had ever experienced losses like mine and felt what I was feeling.
The Help That Changed My Life
Some time later, I met Dawn Cruchet, a grief specialist in Montreal.
Dawn transformed my life.
She helped me understand what had happened to me. She taught me that grief is not something we "get over." It is something we learn to carry. She helped me discover that healing does not mean forgetting. It means learning to live with love and loss side by side.
For the first time, I realized that the most painful experiences of my life could become the foundation for helping others through theirs.
I had found my calling.
Turning Grief Into Purpose
With renewed purpose, I returned to school, earned additional degrees and professional certifications, and devoted my career to supporting people living with grief, serious illness, and loss.
I went on to serve as Cancer Patient Education Coordinator at the Oncology Day Centre of the Royal Victoria Hospital and on the oncology floor of the Montreal General Hospital.
I volunteered in Palliative Care at Mount Sinai Hospital, facilitated grief and bereavement support groups for Hope & Cope at the Jewish General Hospital and Wellness Centre, maintained a private psychotherapy practice at the Queen Elizabeth Health Complex, and eventually founded Good Grief Central to expand access to grief education and free community support.
Throughout those years, one truth became unmistakably clear:
No one should have to grieve alone.
There Is No "Getting Used to It"
Years later, I sat beside my best friend of nearly forty-five years as she was dying.
Her father turned to me and said,
"I guess this isn't such a big deal to you. As a grief counsellor, and having worked in oncology, you must be used to it."
His words stunned me.
I could barely breathe as I answered,
"No."
I am not used to it.
I never will be.
My grief journey began at sixteen. It began again after my mother's death. It has begun again with other deeply loved people throughout my life.
Every significant loss asks something new of us.
There is no immunity to grief.
There is no professional training that protects us from heartbreak.
There is only the lifelong work of learning to carry our grief with greater understanding, compassion, and meaning.
That has become the work of my life.
If you are grieving today, I want you to know this:
You do not have to walk this path alone.
It would be an honour to walk beside you.
Natalie Segall
514-222-9668
[email protected]
The personal journey that led me to become a grief counsellor.
The story I am about to share is deeply personal. I share it not because my grief is more important than anyone else's, but because it explains why I have devoted my life to supporting people through grief and loss.
My hope is that, in reading it, you will know that you are not alone.
My Father's Death Changed Everything
On Sunday, April 25, 1977, my father died by suicide at the age of 48. In an instant, my world was shattered.
My mother was 35. I was 16. My brother was 14.
Overnight, we were left emotionally devastated and financially destitute.
I was the only one at home with my father when he died. I pleaded with him not to leave us, but the emotional and physical pain he was living with overruled all of my appeals.
From that evening onward, the person I had been ceased to exist. My faith in the future disappeared. I struggled to trust, to hope, and to believe that life held anything worth anticipating. I developed coping strategies that helped me survive, but not truly live.
Although I carried on with work, friendships, and daily responsibilities, I moved through life emotionally numb. Any possibility of happiness was overshadowed by the fear of losing it. Attempts by others to get close to me were often met with distance because I no longer believed that love could exist without the certainty of loss.
Beneath it all, I carried a crushing sense of guilt and shame. I believed I had failed to save my father and that somehow I had not been important enough for him to stay alive.
Life continued.
I did not.
Even after seventeen years, I still had no understanding of lifelong grief or the permanent imprint traumatic loss can leave on a person's life. Like many grieving people, I convinced myself that I had "handled it all just fine."
I had not.
It would take another devastating loss before I finally began to understand what grief had done to me.
My Mother's Death Reopened Everything
In 1993, my mother was diagnosed with tracheal cancer. I became her sole caregiver and put my own life on hold throughout her illness.
She died seven and a half months later.
After months of living at the hospital with my mother, I emerged exhausted, isolated, and profoundly changed. Suddenly, as though pulled back through time, my father's death and all the trauma surrounding it became vividly present once again.
Along with my mother's death came a despair so overwhelming that it felt impossible to imagine life ever being meaningful again.
Although friends and family cared deeply, few were able—or willing—to sit with the depth of my grief. I was often met with discomfort, silence, or well-intentioned platitudes.
I felt completely alone.
I wondered whether anyone else had ever experienced losses like mine and felt what I was feeling.
The Help That Changed My Life
Some time later, I met Dawn Cruchet, a grief specialist in Montreal.
Dawn transformed my life.
She helped me understand what had happened to me. She taught me that grief is not something we "get over." It is something we learn to carry. She helped me discover that healing does not mean forgetting. It means learning to live with love and loss side by side.
For the first time, I realized that the most painful experiences of my life could become the foundation for helping others through theirs.
I had found my calling.
Turning Grief Into Purpose
With renewed purpose, I returned to school, earned additional degrees and professional certifications, and devoted my career to supporting people living with grief, serious illness, and loss.
I went on to serve as Cancer Patient Education Coordinator at the Oncology Day Centre of the Royal Victoria Hospital and on the oncology floor of the Montreal General Hospital.
I volunteered in Palliative Care at Mount Sinai Hospital, facilitated grief and bereavement support groups for Hope & Cope at the Jewish General Hospital and Wellness Centre, maintained a private psychotherapy practice at the Queen Elizabeth Health Complex, and eventually founded Good Grief Central to expand access to grief education and free community support.
Throughout those years, one truth became unmistakably clear:
No one should have to grieve alone.
There Is No "Getting Used to It"
Years later, I sat beside my best friend of nearly forty-five years as she was dying.
Her father turned to me and said,
"I guess this isn't such a big deal to you. As a grief counsellor, and having worked in oncology, you must be used to it."
His words stunned me.
I could barely breathe as I answered,
"No."
I am not used to it.
I never will be.
My grief journey began at sixteen. It began again after my mother's death. It has begun again with other deeply loved people throughout my life.
Every significant loss asks something new of us.
There is no immunity to grief.
There is no professional training that protects us from heartbreak.
There is only the lifelong work of learning to carry our grief with greater understanding, compassion, and meaning.
That has become the work of my life.
If you are grieving today, I want you to know this:
You do not have to walk this path alone.
It would be an honour to walk beside you.
Natalie Segall
514-222-9668
[email protected]