From the heart

Two sisters have combined empathy and talent to produce the Loss Mothers project, exploring grief through interviews and art.

By Sue Turpie - Photography by Bec of Words & Pictures

As a parent, you imagine that losing a child is the worst experience you could endure, and yet maternal grief is still well down the list of subjects to talk about when it comes to our emotional health and wellbeing. But two sisters are slowly changing that in their own unique and caring way. The Loss Mothers is a project run by photographer Bec Gallagher and midwife/nurse Caitlin Epps, honouring personal stories that help us understand the complexity and depth of a mother’s grief. The initiative comprises a series of interviews presented as podcasts, to be followed by a photographic essay that bring together the stories and experiences of mothers who have loved, endured loss, and are grieving the death of their child. “Women from all walks of life are telling their story, the narrative is theirs,” they say. “To share how the death of their child has changed their world, their grief and how their children continue to enrich their lives. We are exploring stories from women, young and old, who have lost babies, children, teenagers and adult children.” Some topics, such as mental illness and cancer, are now widely spoken of, while the process of grief and its continued impact still seems to be a subject that could be further explored and accepted as part of life’s journey. “We hear about miscarriage, termination, adoption, stillbirth, SIDS, terminal childhood illness, tragic accidents, suicide, death from terror attacks and war in the news, but rarely do we get to gain insight and learn about a mother’s loss and grief in the days, weeks, months and years following.” It was around two years ago that Bec was searching for a special project to undertake. While she spent time photographing families, Bec had experience with photoshoots that were cancelled due to the loss of a family member. The sisters also had close acquaintances who had endured loss. “The idea grew from there, but I knew it wasn’t something I could undertake on my own,” Bec says. “My sister’s own experiences being a midwife, and her ability at empathising meant she was the perfect person to get on board.” Caitlin says: “When I first started nursing, I had some experience with palliative care, but being in my early 20s I hadn’t had much experience with death or dying. Transferring into midwifery, I knew that loss would be a part of my work.

“In hospital you see that initial phase, for perhaps a week after, but it wasn’t until we had a mutual friend lose a baby and another friend whose teenage son (passed away) that I was opened to life-long grief and how much it changed a person’s life. “We’re very good at dealing with rituals and knowing what to do around the funeral, and perhaps even the weeks and months following. But after a year, as a community, we might not be as comfortable exploring how that grief is evolving for the people around us.” You could think that revealing such a personal story would be difficult, but Bec and Caitlin have discovered participants have been very receptive to the opportunity to talk, which the sisters also found made their job more comfortable. “Having seen how people want their child to still be such a big part of their life and talk about them, helped take away that fear from us in approaching these mothers to be a part of the project,” Caitlin says. Those who have been featured in the podcasts so far include Merna Curnow, who lost a daughter in the Bali bombings; Corinne Scullie (Ervin), who lost her entire family in a car accident around Castlemaine; Alannah McGregor from SPAN, who lost two children to suicide within a month; and Shelley and Eric Hocking, who suffered two stillbirths.

“We touch on all ages, from babies to adult children,” Bec and Caitlin explain. “As hard and confronting as the topic is, we are helping a lot of the mothers’ friends and family understand their grief and even deal with their own. I think our audience will also find inspiration from each mother surviving the grief and loss of a child.” In the interviews, the mothers are given space and support to open up about their individual experiences, which can be both confronting and inspiring. “We are delving into the uniqueness of each woman’s experience, while coming to understand that the bonds of shared grief create universal threads that echo through time,” they say. “We aim to shine a light on maternal grief, provide a safe space for mothers to share the love, laughter and joy of motherhood, along with the raw reality and constant journey of grief that comes with losing a child. Our intention is to honour the mothers who participate in The Loss Mothers project as the life-giving spirits they are.” And this, Bec and Caitlin have done in abundance. The Loss Mothers series can be accessed via Apple Podcasts.

All I can say is that whoever invented ear-hook face masks didn’t wear a hearing aid!

By Dirk de Moore — Audiologist, Bendigo Hearing Clinic

I originally wrote this article for the Bendigo Magazine’s 2020 Spring Edition, so it is with a sense of sadness that my message is still relevant this springtime. As we all know, we will be living with ongoing restrictions of some sort for a long time. COVID-19 has affected our way of life but also impacted our ability to communicate. While it is the hearing impaired – who I deal with most – who have been severely impacted, we all will have to live with three key factors that will continue to affect our communication. Face masks I’ve lost count of the number of patients who have told me they’ve almost lost a hearing aid removing their face mask. Washable cloth masks are quite popular and comfortable and better for the environment, given I have read that worldwide we are using a staggering 129 billion disposable masks each month. Apart from not seeing someone’s expression, which I personally find most disconcerting, masks adversely impact communication in two ways. First, they act as an acoustic barrier and drop the speech signal anywhere from three to 12 decibels, depending on the type of mask. But acoustically, they also act as a lowpass filter allowing low speech sound through but reducing high-pitched sounds, making it even harder to hear that girl at the supermarket checkout. However, the most obvious impact masks have is to reduce our ability to lip read. Those with significant hearing loss can lip read anywhere from up to 50% to 80% of speech, but we all gain about 15% of speech understanding from lip reading. A simple exercise to demonstrate this is to watch the nightly news and cover the TV with a blanket and then turn the volume down to a level where you can’t quite follow the speech. Remove the blanket and you’ll be able to follow every word. Social distancing For 38 years as an audiologist, I’ve been telling people to move closer together. Now we are telling everybody to move further apart! Understanding speech relies on gaining a person’s attention, facing them and being close enough to allow them to hear you. With social distancing, we are making it harder to understand speech because every time we double the distance from someone, say from the mandated 1.5 metres to three metres, we drop the speech signal by six decibels. This might not sound like a lot, but it reduces the sound level 50%, making perceived speech 30% softer. Also, we are pushing others potentially closer to other distracting noises like traffic or air conditioners,

Life Amplified

further reducing the signal-to-noise ratio and hence speech understanding. Internet quality Poor internet speeds and connectivity are not helping communication during this pandemic. Zoom conferences range from high to appalling in quality with images sometimes freezing, faces fuzzy and with the sound often distorted. Looking at measures to improve your internet connectivity and even investing in good-quality headphones (or better still if you have even a mild hearing loss, the latest hearing aids that have superb Bluetooth streaming capability) will improve your chances of successful communication. Stay safe, stay well, stay positive. For more advice on improving your hearing and ability to communicate, make an appointment at the Bendigo Hearing Clinic by phoning 5442 5800 or visit www.bendigohearingclinic.com.au

Nala de Moore @16 weeks: “Hey dad with these ears I won’t need hearing aids!”

DIRK de MOORE – Audiologist

• Latest technology • Hearing assessments & hearing aid fitting • 60 day trial periods

• Cosmetically appealing solutions • Worksafe, industrial, earplugs • Professional independent advice (03) 5442 5800 13 Rowan St, Bendigo www.bendigohearingclinic.com.au