Thunder Bay will host the eighth annual Out of the Darkness Memorial Walk this Sunday to support parents who have lost children to suicide.
Margaret Hajdinjak started the walk eight years ago after losing her son to suicide in 2005.
She got the idea after going to a similar event in New York City in 2009, she said.
"It was overwhelming, and it was almost like calming for me, even though I was in a big city [and] didn't know a soul," she said. "But I still didn't feel alone. And when we walked over the bridge, it was like, we didn't have to talk. You just knew that everyone was feeling the same way."
In daily life, Hajdinjak said, people often avoided talking to her about the death of her son.
They might express their condolences, she said, but they wouldn't asked questions.
Some avoided her altogether, which she said she found especially painful.
She wanted to create a space where it was okay to talk about what she and other parent survivors were going through, she added, and some participants tell her it's the only place they feel they can have those conversations.
"We're left behind with that stigma and the guilt and really trying to understand, 'Why did they do this?'" she said. "And it's not why they did it. It's just they saw no other way out. That's what I've come to understand. And I've just sort of learned to adapt that loss into my life and celebrate my son in the many ways that I can."
That celebration is an important theme of the walk too, Hajdinjak said, noting that the atmosphere of the walk is much like any other, despite its sombre theme.
"It's not sad," she said. "We're celebrating the people we lost."