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FAMILY: The Compassionate Friends grief support group aids those who've lost loved one
| Sunday, Feb 24 2008 9:25 PM
Last Updated: Sunday, Feb 24 2008 10:01 PM
Mary Conway was making pies on Thanksgiving Day 1991 when she got the news that her 20-year-old daughter, Nancy, was killed in a car accident after dozing off at the wheel on her way back from Tijuana.
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"She was a college student messing around," Conway tells people. She can laugh now. Time and the support of family and friends have helped heal the horrible wounds.
"It's like a ribbon through your life that's gone," she says of the experience of losing a child. "I should have grandchildren. There aren't any grandchildren. There was no wedding. There was no husband. She didn't get to finish college."
Conway is a "seasoned griever," according to The Compassionate Friends, an international grief-support organization whose local chapter she leads. Conway is in a healthy place in her grief and can reach out to the "newly bereaved" who turn to this self-help nonprofit that offers healing and hope primarily to parents -- but also to grandparents and siblings -- after the death of a child of any age.
"If you see us laugh, we're not negating your loss," she says to new attendees at group meetings, which are free. "It's just that we are now in a place where we can laugh. And it's a good place to be. If you have a chance to laugh or smile, take advantage of it."
Founded in Coventry, England, in 1969 as The Society of the Compassionate Friends, the organization inaugurated its first U.S. chapter in 1972, and now boasts almost 600 chapters throughout the 50 states. There are hundreds of more chapters in some 30 countries around the world. Bakersfield meetings started in August 2002.
There are other organizations that provide bereavement support not limited to the loss of children.
Hoffmann Hospice serves up to about 15 adults and a dozen children every week in its support groups, according to Doug Kessler, family support coordinator.
Gretchen Daughtery, Hoffmann's director of public relations, said about half of those people are family members of Hoffmann patients. The groups are free and open to all, whether their loved ones were Hoffmann clients or not, said Kessler, who has a master's degree in social work and is a trained bereavement facilitator.
Kessler said grief support groups "normalize" the feelings of attendees by helping them see that there are others feeling the same way and "that their feelings are appropriate and normal."
"They also meet other people who are in the different stages of the grieving process," he said. Seeing others who have gone through the pain lets them know their grief will become "livable" and they'll be able to "come out on the other side whole," he said.
Kessler said Hoffmann Hospice has sometimes even provided crisis counseling to area schools after the death of a teacher or classmate.
Conway said Compassionate Friends does educational outreaches to police, medical and mental health workers, funeral directors, clergy and others who often come in contact with grieving families.
Doris Roderick
Doris Roderick, editor of the local Compassionate Friends newsletter, likes to help grieving parents so much, she gets creative: Recently, Roderick, 60, has started reading the obituaries in The Californian online and leaving messages of sympathy and hope in the accompanying guest books of some of them.
"Our deepest condolences are with you as you grieve. Years come and go, but the loss of a child is forever," her message reads. It goes on to explain what Compassionate Friends is and gives the group's phone number.
"I was afraid it was going to be considered an intrusion," Roderick said, but at least four people had called her back within two weeks after she began leaving the messages.
Roderick has the experience to help: She lost her 29-year-old daughter, Denise Schulz, to a stroke. "It's been 10 years for my daughter, but I still miss her every day," she said. "The grief of a parent losing a child is the worst. It changes, but it doesn't go away. You still have this intense feeling of loss.
"The problem with having children die is there's no new stories," she said. "With their death, their future is gone. There are no more accomplishments in their life."
Roderick, a widow, also lost a grandchild, Kathryn Bishop, the stillborn twin of surviving brother, Lucas, who is now 7 years old. For Roderick, the onslaught of emotions unleashed by Kathryn's stillbirth kept her from being able to hold Lucas until he was a month old.
The meetings
Compassionate Friends has a bereavement self-help library as well as giveaway pamphlets featuring such grave titles as "But I Didn't Say Goodbye," "Suicide of a Child," "When Men Grieve" and "A Guide to Understanding Guilt During Bereavement."
The Bakersfield chapter meets for two hours on the second Tuesday of every month at the Bakersfield and Kern County Fire Department joint training facility on Victor Street off Olive Drive.
At the February meeting, which focused on the grief of surviving siblings, 14 participants -- 10 women, three men and a 17-year-old boy -- talked about their losses, cried and even laughed together.
Like any self-help group, Compassionate Friends might be for some people but not for others, said Bakersfield City Councilwoman Irma Carson. Carson's daughter, Sharon Yvonne Carson, 50, died on Jan. 31 after a heart attack and loss of brain function.
Roderick said she left a message for Sharon Carson's family in her obituary's online guest book, but the councilwoman said she had not seen it. Carson said she is relying on her Christian faith to help her deal with her daughter's death.
Conway agreed with Carson that Compassionate Friends may not be for everyone: "We suggest that (newcomers) go to two or three meetings before they make a final decision if this group is right for them," she said.
Kessler of Hoffmann Hospice said grieving people can certainly turn to their church or other social groups for help. "But support groups are really the way to go," he said, "because they find a commonality with people who are going through the same thing."
John and Helen
"The parent is supposed to die before the kid," said John Ohe, whose son, Philip, 28, died in an accident a year ago. "It's different -- topsy turvy -- when a parent loses a child.
"It's so shocking. That's why this group to me is important, because we're all in the same predicament: We've all lost kids."
Ohe used to teach fourth grade at Williams Elementary School. Helen Horton teaches fourth grade there now. Her 29-year-old son, Zachary, died after a fall from a parking structure in October.
"As soon as my son passed away, friends called John because they knew we needed to connect with people," Horton said. Ohe invited her to Compassionate Friends.
Horton brought her 17-year-old son, Tyler, to the February meeting. Tyler is a senior at Garces Memorial High School and a member of the school's varsity baseball team. Like others at the meeting, he cried and laughed as he talked about the pain of losing his older brother, then recalled the happy times.
"He would do this thing called a dead finger," he said, laughing as he shook one of his own fingers. "He would hit you with it and it hurt so much. The day that he died, I wanted him to do it so bad."