Beyond the Loss

Content note: This episode includes discussion of pregnancy loss, cremation, infant death, and memorial practices.

Michael Pierson, president of Pierson’s Funeral Service and a founder of the Silent Hopes Memorial, shares his decades of experience supporting families through pregnancy and infant loss.

Michael explains why rituals and memorials can be so important in helping families process grief, particularly when losses happen early in pregnancy and may go unacknowledged by others.

He also shares the story behind the Silent Hopes Memorial program, which provides a respectful cremation and memorial space for babies lost early in pregnancy — ensuring families have a place to grieve and remember their children.

What is Beyond the Loss?

Beyond the Loss is a podcast from the Pregnancy & Infant Loss Support Centre featuring honest, thoughtful conversations about grief, remembrance, and life after pregnancy and infant loss.

Each episode shares personal stories from parents, professionals, and community members whose lives have been shaped by loss. Each perspective reflects on how grief evolves over time and how love for our babies continues to shape our lives.

Together, we explore what it means to move forward while still carrying loss. Guests reflect on topics like parenting after loss, supporting partners and families, rituals of remembrance, community, and the quiet ways grief can resurface long after others expect it to fade.

You’ll also hear from professionals who walk alongside families every day and others who bring insight into the many ways people find meaning, connection, and healing. And often, those professionals have a personal story themselves. Because this type of loss is anything but rare.

This podcast was created by the Pregnancy & Infant Loss Support Centre, a Canadian charity supporting families who have experienced miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal loss, SIDS, and other forms of reproductive loss. Through counselling, peer support groups, mentorship programs, comfort boxes, and community gatherings, the Centre works to ensure that no family has to navigate this kind of grief alone.

Beyond the Loss exists because these stories matter. Pregnancy and infant loss are often surrounded by silence, yet so many families carry these experiences with them for a lifetime.

By sharing these conversations, we hope to create space for remembrance, connection, and understanding; for bereaved families, and for anyone who wants to better support someone they love.

Because grief does not disappear with time. But neither does love.