Trini Porta, a 52-year-old resident of Montoliu de Segarra, lives alone with a dog and two cats. Last January, she suddenly lost Cupi, a powerful dog she adopted from the Cervera pound ten years ago. An irreversible liver disease forced her to have him euthanized to prevent further suffering. The void he left is still raw. She doesn't hesitate to compare this loss to the loss of a person. "I've lost a member of my family, and many people don't understand that," Porta admits.

A dear friend who lost his wife this year told me that he could bear the loneliness but was finding it very difficult to overcome her absence. He said he knew how to manage on his own, that he could successfully cope with both an unexpected Wi-Fi outage and a recipe for fricandó, but that he was saddened by not being able to argue with her or ask for her opinion. The fact that what had once been constant exchanges had turned into silence was what he found hardest of all.

The Secretary of State for Labor, Joaquín Pérez Rey, has reached an agreement with the CCOO and UGT unions to begin processing the increase in leave days for the death of a family member and for a new leave for palliative care. This measure will not have the support of employers' associations after the Ministry of Labor handed it over to the CeEO (Spanish Confederation of Employers' Organizations) at the beginning of the month to finalize negotiations. Following the meeting convened this Monday by the Ministry of Labor, Pérez Rey thanked the unions for "rising to the occasion" by increasing the leave for the death of a family member to 10 days and the new leave for palliative care to 15 days. "It's a shame that the Spanish employers' association isn't part of this agreement. It's incomprehensible. They should explain to the employers and workers of this country why they have excluded themselves from a regulation that puts our country in line with the rest of Europe and how they can show such a high degree of insensitivity," he stated. However, he asserted that this is no less important agreement. "The fact that the employers' association isn't involved doesn't diminish its importance," he affirmed. In this regard, the Secretary of State asked the Spanish employers' association to focus on improving the well-being of companies and workers in the country, instead of persecuting sick workers. "We shouldn't persecute those who get sick; what we need to prevent is workers getting sick. And do you know how workers get sick? Precisely when they have to return to their jobs two days after a child dies," he added. The Ministry of Labor wants to extend bereavement leave for the death of a spouse, partner, or relatives up to the second degree of consanguinity to 10 days, which can be taken up to four weeks after the death, either consecutively or intermittently. It also proposes granting up to 15 days for the new bereavement leave for relatives up to the second degree of consanguinity. Furthermore, the Royal Decree that the Ministry of Labor intends to promote includes the incorporation of a one-day leave to accompany a person receiving euthanasia. This leave will be available to any worker designated as the companion, regardless of whether or not there is a family relationship.

Death is a taboo subject in our society, especially when it affects children or young people. This has many repercussions. Some are more symbolic, such as the fact that there isn't a word to describe someone who has lost a son or daughter—there are words for someone who loses a partner or a child who loses a parent. Others have a greater impact on the daily lives of those affected. For example, when a person loses a son or daughter, they can take two days of leave from work. The same number of days as leave for moving and far fewer than the 15 days of leave for a wedding. Another reflection is the limited support that families grieving the death of a child receive from the public system. Mireia Rosés lost her six-year-old son, Jan, in June 2024. She recalls that at the Parc Taulí Hospital in Sabadell, where he died, a child psychologist saw her and her husband a couple of times, but couldn't provide follow-up care. At their local primary care center (CAP) in Terrassa, they weren't given an appointment until October, and they only had two half-hour visits with the psychologist. Fortunately, that same month they received a call from the bereavement support team at the pediatric palliative care unit of Vall d'Hebron Hospital in Barcelona. They were invited to participate in a support group for families who had suffered the same loss, and after the first session, they were also offered individual support. For the past year, Mireia, her husband, and their five-year-old daughter have been attending individual sessions and, in the case of the girl, group sessions for couples, families, and siblings. "It has saved my life." Mireia is quite emphatic when she talks about what this support has given her. "You feel alone, you feel like you can't talk to anyone because, despite having many people who want to support you and who do, they can't understand you because they haven't been through the same thing. Until you find someone who has experienced it, you feel misunderstood," she says. She affirms that participating in these groups and in individual sessions with the team's professionals has helped her understand that she must move forward and that she can. "And it has helped my daughter realize that she's not the only child in the world who has lost a sibling, that there are other girls and boys in the same situation, and that she can share it," she adds.

There are books that make you enjoy, books that make you reflect, books that make you suffer. Every once in a while, a book comes into your hands—and your heart—that makes you enjoy, makes you reflect, and makes you suffer. This is the case, from my point of view, ofIn nature things just grow, by Chinese writer Yiyun Li, who lives in the United States (published in Catalan by La Otra Editorial, translated by Marc Rubió).

Lying to survive. Self-deception. Lying to keep others from interfering in her life. Lying as a rebellion to continue living the way she wants. Sara, the protagonist of The liar (Más Libros), Eva Pitarch's debut novel, lies constantly. Her husband thinks she's going to work, but he gets careless on the streets of Barcelona or locks himself in his grandmother's apartment. Sara is uncomfortable because she constantly remembers the dead, including her six-year-old daughter. On the other hand, the others insist she should leave them behind.

The loss of a family member is a moment that tears at the seams and shakes internal structures. Even if the situation is disturbing or uncomfortable, children and adolescents need to find answers to their concerns about death. In the family, it's time for conversation: to bring out the beliefs we hold and to talk about it in a balanced and open way. Has grandparent gone to heaven? Or does life just end? What we do and say will largely determine how children—and, in turn, we—go through this grieving process. Will seeing the lifeless body help them realize that grandparent will never be there again? These and other questions about how children and young people experience death are answered by Marta Butjosa, educator and therapist.

1 - Packages wrapped in gift paper. It's the first thing we saw when we walked into my mother's house for the first time after the accident. She'd started preparing Christmas presents, and there they were, as if nothing had happened. As Joan Didion says, "Life can change in an instant. In a normal instant." The emptiness was physical; I was missing limbs. Grief filled me. outsider In a happycracy where constant joy is expected of you. When you're looking for a job, when you go out with friends, or when you meet someone. At some point, I've traded studying or working for one: "Hi, I'm Carla, and my mother has died. And you? Will you tell me about your passing?"

Music, drawing and even relaxation are some of the allies that Neus Cester uses to approach death and mourning with very young children. A kindergarten teacher, Neus Cester (Martorell, 1995) says that even when they are very young, children can understand the death of a family member or an animal; it is enough to adapt the way of explaining it to each age to make it more understandable. "We have to normalize death as part of life," she says. It will depend on the maturity of each child, but by the age of three they can already feel how adults suffer from death, although they may not associate it with a permanent disappearance. It will be a little later, by the age of five (these are not mathematical limits but approximate), that they begin to feel "curiosity" and get fed up with asking questions. For Cester, it is not necessary to be alarmed or nervous, but it is a good time to resolve doubts about life, because the important thing is "that they feel listened to, to validate their feelings," she says. He also says that there is no fear at the moment, so we can take advantage of the interest so that they can grow without that "taboo."