As a caregiver, I was rarely invited to funerals. Still, I mourned deeply from a distance [Video]

This is a First Person column by Lana Cullis, who lives in Powell River, B.C. For more information about CBC’s First Person stories, see the FAQ.

The big hand on the clock above my desk jumped ahead another minute. My client was 15 minutes late for her employment counselling appointment, which was surprising since she was always on time and had never missed a session with me. 

While I waited, I looked up some more job postings to share with Rebecca (not her real name). My role as a vocational rehabilitation counsellor at a Vancouver community mental health team was to help patients find and keep work while living with a serious mental health diagnosis. This story is about my personal experience with grief in a professional setting, and much care has been taken to preserve ethical boundaries and privacy.

Rebecca had been referred to me a year earlier when she finally began …