Space to Grieve: One Woman’s Courage to Take On a Broken System

Estimated reading time: 12 minutes

After navigating the loss of her terminally ill child, Joyal Mulheron sets out to change the landscape for bereaved families

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Grief has been an integral part of my life and identity ever since the sudden death of my father, when I was fifteen. After losing my mother this past summer, I learned about Joyal Mulheron from a mutual friend. Joyal’s story and the work she and her non-profit are doing around grief and bereavement care moved me profoundly—enough to write this article. In the midst of our nation’s current grief epidemic, I felt compelled to share this extraordinary journey and one  woman’s determination to change a broken system.

Joyal Mulheron has a warm smile, a hint of sadness behind her eyes, and a steely determination to bring about a seismic change in bereavement care. 

Her passionate dedication to helping make grief and bereavement more manageable for those who have lost loved ones is rooted in her own family’s experience. After becoming parents to two healthy daughters, one adopted from Ethiopia, Joyal and her husband had a third daughter.

Eleanora’s birth — and death — changed her family’s life forever.

Eleanora was born with a chromosomal abnormality that affected her entire body. It was so severe she wasn’t expected to survive for more than a few hours. She ended up living for almost five months, thanks in no small part to Joyal, who had a background in science and took on the monumental task of orchestrating and administering her care. “Honestly, she would have near-death episodes frequently, sometimes multiple times