AFTER a lifetime marked by devastating loss, Karen Taylor of Mt Martha is finding purpose in pain, which she hopes will also help others feel seen and supported.
For more than 30 years, she has carried the weight of loss, beginning with a heartbreaking miscarriage followed 18 months later by the loss of her mother to cancer in 1996.
Tragedy followed in 1997 when her sister committed suicide. Then came the sudden loss of her brother-in-law to a heart attack shortly after, before a friend and an aunt were taken by cancer.
“This left me feeling as if I was under a dark cloud of grief,” Taylor recalled.
At the time, she channelled that pain into creating what she called a Sympathy Pin to support anyone who was experiencing a journey with grief and loss.
Today, she is preparing to relaunch the pin, which she is renaming The Grief Pin.
She said this was a grassroots project aimed at sparking compassion and connection through a small but meaningful symbol.
“The Sympathy Pin was created over 25 years ago — a time when grief and mental health issues were not discussed, as they are today,” she said.
The pins resonated with many, and in 2009, were offered to surviving victims of the Black Saturday bushfires.
Taylor, who ran boutique resorts in Fiji for 20 years, said she witnessed Muslim, Hindu and Fijian communities share their journeys with the loss of a loved one differently to what she saw growing up back home.
“The key difference being everyone knew when someone was mourning. Community support was immediate, and the loss commemorated with events held over time enabled grieving.”
Grief Australia has thrown its support behind the Grief Pin, with its CEO Christopher Hall noting it “provides the bereaved person with a means of acknowledging to themselves, their state as a bereaved person as they continue to live in the world” as well as “a point of connection between the grieving person and their community”.
When the Sympathy Pin was sold three decades ago, all royalties went back to Grief Australia to support their grief counselling work.
Taylor, a former architect who, at the age of 24, led the project design and construction of the Frankston Hotel, designed the Grief Pin which incorporates a circle in a square in black, white and gold — aimed at men and women.
Gold represents precious memories, black for loss, white for life ongoing, a white circle for eternal life, and gold squares for earthly life.
“This isn’t about me but about trying to create value and connectivity and purpose in an area of great need because we’re all going to experience a form of loss, whatever loss that might be — a dog, a parent, a child, a limb; conversations can resonate with each other if we have the opportunity to express them,” Taylor said.
She said she hoped to partner with the Mornington Peninsula Shire and other local groups in distributing the pins.
In the meantime, the pins can be purchased for $9.95 each from the Grief Australia website at www.grief.org.au (search for “grief pin” in the website’s search bar). All proceeds will go directly to Grief Australia.
First published in the Mornington News – 29 July 2025
