What does grief look like when it doesn’t follow the timeline people expect?

In this episode I speak with Maria Belanic, a certified grief educator whose life has been shaped by cultural identity, caregiving, and profound loss.

Maria shares what it was like growing up as a first-generation Italian immigrant in Canada, raised in a traditional household with strict gender expectations, silence around emotion, and the constant pressure to be “good” and “strong.”

Years later, those early experiences would echo through the most difficult chapter of her life: supporting her son Stefan through an 11-year battle with a rare incurable blood cancer, and eventually facing his death at age 27.

Maria speaks candidly about the isolation of long-term caregiving, the way grief changes families, why she protected her son’s hope until the very end, and what it means to stop treating grief as something to “get over.”

Today, Maria works as a peer-to-peer grief educator, helping others feel witnessed rather than fixed — and offering a different way to hold love and loss together.

This episode is for anyone who has supported someone through illness, felt unseen in their grief, or wondered why “moving on” never felt like the right language.

Key Takeaways

• Grief isn’t something we “get over” — it’s something we learn to carry alongside love.
• Caregiving can be deeply isolating, especially when emotional support is absent.
• Language matters: how we name illness and loss shapes how we survive it.
• Sibling grief is often overlooked, creating silent pain in families.
• Many grievers don’t need advice — they need to be witnessed.
• Old childhood wounds often resurface through grief, bringing insecurity and self-blame.

About: Maria Belanic is a bereaved mom and certified grief educator. When her son died, Maria's world shattered. On the outside, she looked fine, inside, she felt lost. Now Maria guides others living with loss, whether recent or years ago feel acknowledged, heard and seen. Healing is carrying love and loss in the same breath.

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