Yvonne Ralph didn’t set out to build a business on grief, but a conversation on her daughter’s back deck changed everything. Pivoting from general gifts to memorial tributes, Yvonne transformed Chain Valley Gifts into one of Australia’s largest personalized memorial businesses. Drawing from the heartbreaking loss of her own daughter, Jessica, Yvonne now works alongside her surviving daughters to provide tangible comfort to thousands. Here, she explains why you should never send flowers to a grieving friend, how to find purpose in pain, and why saying “I don’t know what to say” is better than staying silent.
You’ve turned immense personal loss into something that brings comfort to others. What do you remember about the moment you decided to focus your business on memorial gifts? How did that shift change the way you approached your work?
As a small family business we had tried several different strategies to grow but still hadn’t found the “thing” that would make the difference.
I remember sitting on my daughters’ back deck one weekend, talking about the business, talking about the parts we loved and the parts we didn’t. The customers we could connect to and the difficult customers, the parts of the business that bring joy and fulfilment and the parts that were plain hard work.
It’s like Cassie and I came to the same conclusion at exactly the same time. The thing that we loved, the customers that we could connect with, the thing that brought joy was creating meaningful tributes for people who were grieving. This was something that we could be truly proud of, something that we both knew would make a difference to those people.
As corny as it sounds, I always had this deep feeling that I was put on this earth to make a difference. Although I knew I had done that in small ways my whole life, I suddenly knew that this was my calling – it just felt right.
Work was different after that day. Decisions were much easier to make because we had a clear path to follow. It became more than a way to make a wage, it was a way to touch people at a time when they needed support and to be heard.
My favourite part of the business is creating new products that can help ease their grief in some small way and talking to customers who are grieving themselves or wanting to support a friend who is grieving.
Holding space for grief every day can be deeply emotional. How do you protect your own energy and find moments of peace while helping others through such sensitive experiences?
Grief never leaves you, you learn and adapt to live your life with it. I admit that sometimes it gets to me, especially when it’s a young child that has died and I have shed a few tears, but deep down I know that what we do does make a difference.
My work fills my soul. Even when I talk to a customer and can feel their grief, their sadness, I know that simply by taking the time to talk to them, to listen to their story, I have made a difference to their day. That alone is enough to fill my soul. We also get tons of emails and reviews from customers thanking us for providing them with a way to honour their loved ones, So although it can be sad, it is an amazing business to be involved in.
Chain Valley Gifts began as a small family venture and has now grown into one of Australia’s largest memorial gift businesses. What has it been like building this with your daughters, and how has that shared purpose shaped your family?
Like any small business, there have been ups and downs. There have been a few lean years which were tough but I feel so lucky to work with two of my daughters.
Although all my children are now adults, with their own lives, I am part of my daughters’ lives on a daily basis. We joke and winge and even gossip sometimes, but I get to hear about everything that goes on in their lives, that is a blessing.
My eldest daughter Cassie has three children, the youngest with severe special needs and the business allows her the time she needs to care for her family. She has the freedom to work from home if one of the children are sick or during the school holidays whilst still giving her the mental stimulation of running a business. We call it a lifestyle business because together we make it work around our lives.
We get along great, most of the time, and are generally aligned with business decisions. We all have our own areas of expertise and work collaboratively to grow the business.
I think that because grief has been part of our lives for so long, shifting our business focus into memorial gifts was a natural progression that felt right for us all.
You’ve described creating keepsakes as a way to help others feel connected to their loved ones. What have you learned about the healing power of something tangible during grief?
I believe that one of the scariest things you feel, when grieving, is that you or others might forget the loved one. Having a tangible keepsake can be a physical connection, something to touch, smell or look at. Something that keeps the loved one in the present, a connection to the love that continues after death. This gives a form for the love and creates a safe haven for their grief to be expressed.
It could be a candle that you light each night, a garden plaque where you can sit quietly, a cushion to hug or a photo, all of which say “you are here- you are loved”. This safe haven allows the nervous system to calm down so memories can surface without the fear of sweeping you away.
Keepsakes can also form rituals which can bring a quiet sense of control when everything seems to be out of your control. Over time, the ritual becomes a bridge between “then” and “now,” allowing love to be expressed in a new form.
The other side is sympathy gifts, when a friend gives a memorial gift to their grieving friend it says “I’m here for you, I care” and that is one of the most important things a grieving person can hear.
Through your grief counselling and coaching training, what insights have stood out about how people process loss — and how creativity or ritual can support that process?
Grief is love with nowhere to go. Everybody experiences grief differently and at their own pace, there are no short cuts, no way of avoiding the pain, no right way to grief and no wrong way (although some may experience prolonged grief which needs professional intervention)
It is like the end of that chapter of your life and now you have to start to write a new chapter. You need to learn to live your life without that person there, you need to find a new direction or purpose for your life. Creativity plays an important part at this stage, journaling or art can be a good way to help express your grief while finding a new hobby can help begin a new path
In the early stages of grief days blur and past routines collapse, nothing is how it should be and you feel overwhelmed by emotions and the illusion control, we all thought we had, vanishes. By implementing small rituals, you bring back a sense of control, a moment of calm in the day, a time to remember and grieve that is contained by the ritual. It begins to build a new connection to the loved one and teaches your mind and body that remembrance has a place in everyday life.
Shared rituals, like telling stories, sharing a favourite meal or listening to their favourite music, creates connection to others who share your grief and makes you feel you are not carrying it alone.
Creating rituals is a way of containing the grief, it doesn’t lessen the pain but creates a repeatable pattern of remembrance to carry forward.
For those wanting to support a friend or loved one who’s grieving but don’t know where to start, what’s one thing you wish more people understood about how to show care?
Wow, that’s a big one… Just be there and be ready to listen. And I don’t mean just that first week or month, be there for them for as long as it takes, show up regularly, remember special days like birthdays, anniversaries and Holidays as these days can be especially difficult. Don’t judge or try to fix anything – there is no fixing grief.
When my youngest daughter Jessica died, many of my friends did not know what to say, so they avoided me. I even had one friend cross the road to avoid having to speak to me.
There was one lady from school, who, at the time, wasn’t a close friend, showed up at my house and simply said “I don’t know what to say, but I just wanted to be here for you” That honesty was so refreshing after all the platitudes that it put me at ease and enabled me to speak openly about my feelings.
Don’t send flowers, they die and it is another reminder of their loss. If you want to give a gift, choose one with meaning that shows you care, one that will last longer than a week or two and will bring a sense of support.
