Ontario mother using painful experience of losing a child to help others going through it

Through her own painful experience losing a child, Stefania Thomson is working to help other parents going through the same tragedy.

On her Instagram account “Home with Stefania,” the Durham Region native is guiding other parents suffering through the grief of their own unthinkable tragedies.

“I am a mom of three. My oldest is about turn six in a couple of weeks and after her 1st birthday, I found out that I was pregnant with my son,” shared Thomson, who is now a child bereavement advocate.

“When he turned six months old, he became sick. And developed a persistent fever. He was diagnosed with a life-threatening genetic condition called hemophagocytic lympho histiocytosis, known as HLH … that affects the entire immune system, and the only cure is a bone marrow transplant.

Thomson’s oldest daughter was Jack’s bone marrow donor, but after several complications, Jack passed away in February 2020. That’s when she turned to Instagram, deciding to use her platform to help both herself and others.

“It has been incredibly therapeutic,” said Thomson. “Shortly after Jack passed away, the world shut down and we entered into the worldwide pandemic and so the support systems that we had come to rely on were no longer available to us.”

“So that became even more isolating, and I took to Instagram as a way to cope and a way to express myself and support myself through it in a way.”

Through her account, she has connected with other parents, hearing their stories of hurt and healing.

“I often hear from either people who are medical parents, and I can relate to and who can relate to our story as well.” shared Thomson. “Interestingly I’ve had people reach out to me and say, ‘I have a friend whose son is really sick’ or ‘I have a friend who just lost their daughter’ and they’re reaching out to me for advice on how out to support those people.

In addition to sharing her family’s story on social media, she also does speaking engagements. She shared what it’s like to experience loss from her perspective as a mother and from her oldest daughter’s perspective as a child. Recently, she was part of the SickKids Mother’s Day Instagram campaign.

“I was actually pregnant with Jack or Jack was just born and I saw a Mother’s Day campaign from SickKids … I was sitting there watching this campaign of these moms who were beside themselves, living through every parents worst nightmare and then a few years later there, I was living the exact same nightmare.”

“And being apart of sick kids family is very unique and it’s said it’s place you never want to be yet it is the exact place you want to be when your child is sick,” said Thomson.

SickKids has an online library of resources for bereaved parents, and the hospital emphasizes that their relationship with families doesn’t end when a child dies. These services include grief support coordinators for families of patients.