The club no one wants to join

The Club No One Wants to Join
by Jackie Wesley Chapter Leader for The Compassionate Friends

There is a small, almost unknown group of bereaved parents, siblings, and grandparents called The Compassionate Friends who meet monthly to talk about their children who have died. Very few other people will talk with a bereaved person about the child, for fear of causing them even more grief and tears. That is only because they do not understand how the bereaved mind works. We want to talk about our child; we want to hear stories about our child; we love to hear our child’s name being mentioned over and over.

My youngest daughter Teresa, age twenty-five, died almost fourteen years ago, and each time I have an opportunity I tell others about her. I am so pleased when someone tells me something about her that I didn’t know or maybe had forgotten. It is through talking and talking some more that healing comes about.

Our local chapter of The Compassionate Friends is a part of a national support organization for bereaved parents. We meet in Hagerstown at the Nettle Creek Healthcare Center on the third Tuesday of each month at 7:00 PM. And in Richmond the third Thursday at 7:00 at the First English Lutheran Church, 2727 E. Main Street. We not only talk and reminisce; we also learn about each others’ children--how they died, what they liked to do, how they interacted with family and friends. We each seem to build a special relationship with all our members and their deceased children.

Sometimes at our meetings there is laughter; sometimes there are tears, but whatever the meeting holds, there is always compassion for each other. Our Compassionate Friends meetings are for those whose child, sibling, or grandchild died too soon. I am sorry to say I qualify for all of these categories. My first-born grandchild David Daniel, died only 45 minutes after birth. He was born too soon. I never got to hold him. My daughter Teresa, died of cardiac arrest when she was only 25 years old, and my brother Gordon, died of cancer five years ago at age 64.
Whoever you have lost, I am certain that other bereavement support groups can be just as helpful for anyone who has lost a loved one, and I’d be the first to encourage anyone to seek out a group where you too can talk and remember your loved one. It is the talking about and doing things in their memory that will help you in your healing. As the chapter leader for the East Central Indiana, and also the Miami-Whitewater Chapters of The Compassionate Friends I’d like to quote Darcie Sims PH. D who is a well known speaker, writer, and grief counselor: “If we didn’t love so much, we wouldn’t hurt so much.”