The death of a parent or sibling is one of the most devastating events that a child can experience.
This couldn’t be more true for Madison Lambden, who experienced the tragic loss of her 10-year-old brother Nicholas in 2007.
“The day Nick died was the single most pivotal moment of my whole entire life and probably will be for the rest of my life,” Madison said as a guest speaker at the annual Inspirational Women’s event at Cutten Fields on Thursday.
Losing her brother in a freak accident at an outdoor skating rink when she was just 13-years-old, Madison says she felt very alone in her grief.
“The day Nick died, I feel like I sort of lost my childhood a little bit. When you are a grieving child, you feel like you have to grow up pretty fast,” she said.
“It was such a lonely experience for me. I was the first one in my community of peers, my school and group of friends who had gone through something like this, losing a brother or significant other. It changed my whole entire life.”
To ensure others are not alone in their grieving journey, Madison, along with her mother Susan, founded The Nightingale Centre, a non-profit organization established in 2019 that supports children and families dealing with or anticipating the loss of a significant person in their lives.
The centre offers children and youth bereavement programs, parent/caregiver support programs, as well as education and consultation.
Group and one-on-one grief support programs and services are delivered by trained professionals and are available at no cost to families.
The goal at the The Nightingale Centre is to raise awareness of the painful impact that the death of a loved one has on a family and to ensure that no child or family in the community grieves alone.
Madison’s brother Nicholas was a rep hockey player.
One Sunday afternoon, he was playing hockey with his friends at an outdoor rink when he was struck by a stray puck.
He was airlifted to Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children where he later succumbed to his injuries.
“That changed our life in a completely different trajectory. It was all about how do I manage this new life of mine? I don’t know what I’m doing. I can't do this myself. I will need to get support somehow. And I would love to get support for my daughter,” said Madison’s mother, Susan Lambden.
“As an adult, I knew I had two choices. I could either curl up in a ball and let life carry on and everything falls apart, or I stand up, do what’s right, do what Nicholas would have wanted me to do, and to make sure that I’m ok and that she’ll be ok. So, that’s what I did.”
Susan sought bereavement support for herself and her daughter realizing there were limited supports available for children and families, particularly for her daughter.
This drove her to co-founding The Nightingale Centre.
“I could see how difficult and different our journeys were. They were both tragic. They were both difficult, but they were both very different,” she said.
“Madison was just 13, and as much as I didn’t know how to manage this, I thought how could a 13 year old? She just wanted to just be a normal kid.”
Madison and Susan began having conversations about Nightingale in 2018 and opened the door to the public in 2019.
“We launched with a community event. We expected about 50 people to attend and there were over 200 in the room that day. For us, we thought there is a massive gap here and people want to have the space to talk about grief,” Madison said.
“This topic touches all of us.”
Madison, 31, has over 10 years of business and marketing experience across various industries.
Currently, she works full-time for her family’s business, Terra View Homes, where she plays a role in strategic planning, sales and marketing.
At The Nightingale Centre, Madison engages in programming, fundraising, marketing and community outreach.
“When we first opened I knew that I wanted to be hands on and working with kids and teens,” Madison said.
“I was facilitating a children’s group and I remember walking away from that first one thinking wow! It opened a whole layer of grief that was never uncovered and it still continues to do so.”
The centre also offers training to various organizations and school boards.
“One child in every other classroom is bereaved. That is the statistic in Canada. So, it’s really important that we educate and help counsellors who help children in classrooms and how to support them and their families,” Madison said.
“One in 14 children will experience the death of a parent or sibling by the time they turn 18. We know that we can’t do that work on our own. We would love to and hopefully we will have the capacity to."
Madison says it’s really about opening up the conversation about grief.
“Grief literacy is so important. I am a huge advocate for it. As a society we are really not great at talking about these things but if we can educate our community and open up these conversations, then we can build a more compassionate community which is what we ultimately want to do,” she said.
Madison says as an adult, she has done a great deal of reflecting since losing her brother.
"At 13 years old, you have no comprehension of tragic things happening such as death and grieving,” she said.
“I think for my own journey, it would have made a world of a difference being connected to other people who had gone through a similar experience. I witness it now and I know it makes a world of a difference.”
As much as Madison and Susan wish they could turn back the clock and be with Nicholas, The Nightingale Centre would not exist.
“Obviously, on one hand, I would do anything to have my brother back. They say sibling loss is the loss of a lifetime. It really is. Especially as an older sibling. You don't expect your younger sibling to go before you do. There's sadness associated with this. I grieve the life that I could have had and I grieve for him and the life that he could have had,” Madison said.
“But on the other hand, I have this life now that I love so much, and through Nightingale and so many other things, this has made me into the person I am today. I get to do what I love and what I am passionate about. And it's ok that both exist. And so I think that is the biggest gift. Nick’s life was such a gift to us.”
