"Just 18 month's ago my life suddenly changed.

On October 13, 2006 my husband Brent and I celebrated our daughter Emma's first birthday. Roughly two weeks later Brent died unexpectedly.

Never in a million years would I have believed how drastically life, MY life could change.

I never could have imagined I would be a widow at age 38 and suddenly a single parent.

I must confess how terribly difficult my bereavement has been for me, and guess what? I HAD unbelievable support.

I had two great families and siblings and a host of caring friends.

I had support and help from my church and a husband whose wisdom and forethought has left Emma and I financially secure.

Yet still my pain was overwhelmingly difficult with almost insurmountable challenges.

I was in shock, extremely sad and desperately needed help, but I honestly had no idea where to even begin looking for help.

As it turned out, I was extremely lucky as my parent's neighbour just happened to be involved with a committee that is raising funds for a bereavement centre.

I was connected with Velda Clark, Director of Palliative Care Services who kindly fit me in for an appointment and I was on my way to receiving specialized care.

Velda lent me some very meaningful and appropriate bereavement books and connected me with the Adult Bereavement groups where you meet with and speak to others who shared my same loss. She also suggested that I find one thing a month that I could look forward to for the upcoming year.

My first reaction was that this idea was ridiculous! How could I possibly be able to come up with twelve months of things that I could look forward to when in all honesty I truly didn't think I would be able to come up with even one! But, I persevered and did somehow manage to make myself come up with a whole year's worth of things to look forward to.

Looking back now I realized that this "ridiculous" idea ended up being extremely therapeutic and powerful for me.

This assignment not only helped me realize that I "could" find things to look forward to. It gave me a tiny sense of control and organization in a world that for me was unfortunately very disorganized and extremely out of control.

Two things kept me focused and gave me the will to press on.

The first was my love and responsibility for our beautiful daughter and the second was the anguish I felt when I thought of other young mothers, parents and children in the same situation as me who didn't have the same access that was so generously provided for me.

I must admit I still feel somewhat frozen having passed the 1st anniversary of Brent dying, yet I have learnt that 2008 will be the start of some new firsts, I will now have to find a "new normal" for myself and our daughter Emma.

Although I still continue to work through my grief, I realize that I did somehow survive the awful ever challenging first year. I will be forever grateful for my counselling through Palliative Care as I do not know where I would be, or how I would be doing were it not for this care. I also do not know if I would be as far along in my healing if it weren't for the Adult Bereavement support group that I still benefit from greatly today.

As a person living with Multiple Sclerosis, I was fortunate to have experienced and valued the benefit of counselling both from being a recipient as well as an active counsellor and advocate of the counselling process.

If I were to compare my personal experience of an M.S. diagnosis nearly 18 years ago to losing Brent last year, one of the biggest differences between the two would be how I was able to find appropriate, time sensitive and meaningful information and assistance.

With my M.S. this was absolutely easy and quick. I simply looked up the M.S. Society in the phone book and was quickly connected with help, information and counselling.

When I lost Brent a year and a half ago I looked in the phone book for some sort of bereavement society or centre but such a thing did not exist. There was not one number to call where those of us going through a terrible loss could get the help we need.

No one wants to talk about death, but it unfortunately happens every day and impacts your life and changes it forever.

I certainly do not wish what happened to me to happen to you or any of your loved ones, but, if it did, wouldn't you feel better knowing that there was somewhere you could call that would provide the help you needed?

Having made it through this first year, I recognize that it needs to be a lot easier for the bereaved to get the help they so desperately need.

My wish would be for the Health Care System and the communities in Saskatchewan to support the bereavement centre so it will be recognized as the central place for the bereaved to call to receive clinically competent and skilled assistance.

I also hope that the bereavement centre project raises awareness of the fact that people like me hurt and have extreme pain, yet the very unfortunate part about grieving is the part that society can't see, the part society can't understand.

People like me greatly need accessible, appropriate AND timely care.

I will forever remember Velda's thoughts from one of our appointments when she was explaining to me that the extreme pain I felt was very much like an open wound.

To quote Velda: "if you arrived at emergency with an arrow sticking out of your chest and bleeding all over, emergency would respond and health care is immediately and expertly provided. BUT, if you arrived with a broken heart and no one could "see" it, you are left with no medical attention and left to suffer in silence often with bad outcomes and additional medical expenses."

I would like to close by saying that I believe bereavement assistance, not unlike M.S. support facilities is, in reality, a preventative maintenance system."