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Here are 10 ways to honor your father this Father's Day, and turn a scary day into a joyous occasion of love and remembrance!

 1. Take a special card to his grave - or to where his ashes were buried or scattered

 2. Tie your Father’s Day card or a special message to a helium balloon and let it soar into the sky

 3. Blow some bubbles and send him your love on the wind

 4. Plant some bulbs or a shrub in a place that holds special memories of your Dad - what was his favorite color?

 5. Have his favorite meal - fish and chips? roast dinner ?

 6. Listen to his favorite music - {however awful his taste was!!}

 7. Begin to make a memory box in which to keep things that remind you of him - photos, shells, holiday snaps, glasses, silly tie

 8. Make or buy a new frame for your favorite photograph of him - what was he doing?

 9. Ask your Grandma or Grandad for their memories of Dad as a little boy, and/or your mom for her memories of when she and Dad met

10. Write him a letter or a poem or a song. Maybe you could start with something like ‘If you came back for just five minutes, I’d tell you......’

Download the list at Winston's Wish

Good Luck to Camp Erin Toronto!

Best of luck to the team at Camp Erin Toronto as they head to camp for the weekend! More than 70 campers and nearly 50 community volunteers are all set for a weekend of making new friends, learning new ways to cope with death in their lives and most importantly.... FUN!!!

We are thinking of you!

Music therapy as a healing device

Ever consider music therapy as a way for your child to cope? Melina Roberts wrote about her experience as a music therapy instructor for bereaved children, and the great benefit it brings.

She noticed that children used music therapy sessions for:

• diversion and fun – to escape the grief that had impacted their lives and their homes
• self expression – to explore and express what thoughts and feelings had been evoked by grief
• an opportunity to ask questions – particularly questions about grief that the children couldn’t ask of their Mom or Dad for fear of making them cry
• an opportunity to remember their loved one – to express memories about their deceased loved ones
• an opportunity to speak about being excluded from bereavement activities – for example, when two children, a brother and sister, were not allowed to attend their grandmother’s funeral
• an opportunity to explore and express spiritual beliefs – opportunities to make music, sing and draw about what happens to loved ones after they die
• an opportunity to talk about the impact of grief – opportunities to highlight the past and the present and how grief had caused changes in their lives.