When Grief Becomes a Financial Burden

Your bills don't care if you're ready for work or not.

Image courtesy of Pixabay

Did you know that in Canada you can receive federal income support if your child is missing or worse, murdered?

When I discovered this information, at first I was like YAAY Canada! What a generous show of kindness. But then I was like, what about the rest of us?

The following quote comes directly from the government of Canada website:

The death or disappearance of a child can leave parents grief-stricken and unable to work. Federal income support is available for parents coping with the death or disappearance of a child as a result of a probable criminal offense, and suffering a related loss of income from taking time from work to cope with this tragedy.

First of all, I cannot imagine being the parent of a missing child. Period. My aching heart goes out to every parent who has to continue on living with zero closure.

But I’d like to extract and highlight a couple of lines from that quote.

“death as a result of a probable criminal offense”

And…

“suffering a related loss of income from taking time from work to cope with this tragedy”

Why do I think those two lines are worthy of highlighting? Because there seems to be no government support for parents whose children have died in any other way.

ALL parents suffer a loss of income while grieving the death of their child. In fact, ALL humans with jobs suffer the same when grieving ANY loss, not just a child.

The responsibility of compensation for grief typically falls solely on the workplace.

In my case, my job at the time offered three days of bereavement pay. THREE DAYS pay in exchange for the life of my child.

I returned to work after three weeks because I couldn’t afford to stay at home and cry anymore.

My son died in September of 2020 - right in the middle of the pandemic. Fortunately, a few weeks after I went back to work Covid orders shut us down again, which made me eligible for regular unemployment benefits.

Due to Covid uncertainty, I ended up being permanently let go which was a blessing in disguise. I chose to take the full year of EI benefits and grieve properly.

However, had there not been a pandemic (there’s NEVER a pandemic!) I would have had to take my grief up the tailpipe and pretend I was capable of holding down a job, which is what every other grieving person has to do.

I realize that it’s not the government’s problem if someone dies. Nor is it a workplace problem.

But could be a monumental problem for millions of people who don’t have a loaded savings account or a life insurance payout coming from the person they just lost.

I bet most people have very few options.

They could suck it up and go back to work after the allotted three days of grief pay. **Severe mental health red flag**

They could lose their job because they aren’t able to get their grief under control in the allotted three days.

They could schedule family deaths to only happen during pandemics so they’re eligible for unemployment support. **Yes, I meant that to sound as bitchy as it does**

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Is there a solution or a smart way to wrap up this post? Probably not.

The point I’m trying to get across is that we should never have to sacrifice our mental and emotional well-being for money, but that’s the way the system is built.

I have never, not for one minute, taken for granted the fortuitous timing of my tragedy. But I also can’t ignore that millions of others simply don’t get the time and space to properly grieve.

Are you aware of any financial assistance for bereavement in your region/state/country?

Just curious to see how things differ from location to location, if at all.

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I have added a new section to Grief Notes. It is reserved for guest writers and I’d like to open it up to anyone who would like to contribute to our community.

I’m open to publishing candid pieces about all aspects of loss, written in a wide range of voices. Please note, no poetry or fiction.

Also note, story ideas should be tightly focused on one element of loss at a time, not longer than 800-1000 words. Of course there’s wiggle room but keep it concise.

If you’d like to contribute, please reply to this email or get in touch at kristi@writtenbykristi.com and I’ll send you details on how to submit.