Cheryl Bower (Voices Rock Canada) on Grief and Music

02/04/22 • 29 min

Maureen Pollard interviews Cheryl Bower, founder of Voices Rock Canada, about grief, music, and how singing and songwriting can help people explore and process emotions as well as help them to heal. "What I found with songwriting, and also having the courage to sing my songs in company, was that it fulfilled a need I had to reflect what was going on inside of me at any particular time and put it outside of myself, and one of the things that I call it is 'soul puking onto a piece of paper, developing the idea and then having the courage to sing it in public or record it'.. and it's been an incredibly freeing exercise, and it's been something solely for me."

Previous Episode

Compound Grief - Susan

Maureen Pollard interviews Susan about her experience of compound grief after facing many significant losses such as her brother-in-law who was her best friend, her husband, her father, and two of her brothers. They discuss the lessons Susan learned throughout the first loss that carried her through the next, and how after losing her own husband she was able to give her mother that support she needed when her father died, having gone through the same thing herself. Susan talks about the finality of death that's hard to comprehend: "No matter how much you prepare, death is final, and that's something you just can't wrap your head around because even after someone dies you're still kind of looking for them to call you or to ask them a question. It's just a hard thing for us humans to really wrap our heads around." They also discuss how volunteering and actively searching for ways to use her life lessons to help others, imparting knowledge and building a support system for people going through grief has allowed Susan to channel her negative experiences in a positive way.

Next Episode

Losing a Mother - Meg

Maureen Pollard interviews Meg about her experience of losing her mother during the pandemic, and the difficulties around visitation and care because of the quarantine protocols, especially while she lived in the United States and her mother was in Canada. Meg talks about the struggles with all of the 'what if' questions she asked herself, wondering if the outcome could have been different if she was able to be with her mother sooner, as well as the challenges of trying to navigate and understand the health care system in a different country, and then of hosting a virtual funeral. They also discuss how grateful she is that she was actually able to be with her mother in-person before she passed: "I think I felt lucky at the time, because I knew people in the States whose family had died who were not able to see them at all, never saw them, they died alone. I felt so lucky that I was able to be in the room with her, and hold her hand."