The Telegram (St. John's)
Society

Sunday, July 31, 2005, p. A1-2

PARENTS FORM NEW SUPPORT GROUP: Meet Regularly to help each other deal with pain of losing children

by Danette Dooley

Special to The Telegram

Let me come in where you are weeping, friend,
And let me take your hand.
I, who have known a sorrow such as yours,
Can understand.

Grace Noll Crowell

Matthew Churchill

Kallie Greening

Danny Steele

Tyler Sturge

Not a day goes by that Arlene Sturge doesn't talk to her son, Tyler. Like other mothers and fathers in the newly formed support group for parents who
have lost a child, Arlene and her husband, Everett, believe their son is in a better place - a place where, someday, all parents and children will be reunited. "I always talk to Tyler," she says. "It's OK to talk to your children." Arlene feels Tyler has new friends in Kallie Greening, Matthew Churchill and Danny Steele, while their parents gain strength from each other.

The Sturges, Churchills and Greenings are the families behind the new group. "We had to go see somebody after we lost Matthew and we went to see Dr. Rick Singleton (director of pastoral care at the Health Sciences Centre)," says Rod Churchill. "After a couple of visits, he mentioned that there were two other couples - the Sturges and the Greenings - and he wondered if we'd be interested in all sitting down together with him."

Rod and Desma Churchill's only child, Matthew, died in a hit-and-run accident March 28 at age 15. Arlene and Everett Sturge lost their only child, Tyler, in a plane crash Dec. 5, 2004. The 18-year-old was training for his pilot's licence when the crash occurred. Terry and Bunny Greenings' 15-year-old daughter, Kallie, died in an automobile accident Nov. 11, 2004. Kallie has a sister, Kaitlin, and brother, Kristopher.

While the three couples were initially reluctant with the suggestion of coming together, the friendships formed between the families over the last few months are ties that can only be understood by parents who have lost a child. "We really look forward to our time together," Rod says, sitting in his living room, where the other couples have also come to share their thoughts about the group. "It helps us to talk things out with people who are going through the same sort of feelings that we are," he adds.

The families also draw strength from Mary Steele, whose 15-year-old son, Danny, died by suicide almost 17 years ago.

Steele brings to the group a wealth of experience from her involvement with Compassionate Friends. The international, non-profit, non-denominational, self-help organization offers friendship, understanding, grief education and hope to families who have experienced the death of a child at any age, from any cause.

Like all those involved with Compassionate Friends, Mary is neither a counsellor nor therapist - rather, she is a caring individual who has journeyed down the same path that the other parents are now walking. "It is our intention that this new support group may be modelled after Compassionate Friends. But we're not that far along yet," says Mary, who has joined the other parents for this interview.

Since the group was formed recently, other families have also attended the biweekly sessions. The parents now want to go public as a means of letting other bereaved parents know about the group.

"We know there are families out there where their tragedy happened years ago. Maybe they can come and sit and talk with us and help us like Mary is
doing," Bunny says.

"And if you're not comfortable speaking, you are still welcome to sit and listen," Rod adds, realizing that no two people grieve alike. "There is no right and wrong way, and there are no time frames," his wife says of the grieving process.

"Even Rod and I are totally different. Rod has to keep busy, where I have just enough energy to do about 10 minutes in the garden and then I have to come in," Desma says.

"I cried all the time for four or five months. I couldn't go into a store," Bunny adds. "And it's important that people do what they're comfortable doing and not what people tell them they should do," she says of the months that followed her daughter's death. For Bunny, a six-year-old boy who has been spending time with her family brings with him both comfort and solace. "He is just so innocent. He knows where Kallie is and he gives me so much strength," she says.

Professional assistance
The Churchills say, in addition to Singleton and the new support group, they also depend on psychologist Dr. Hassan Khalili, who has been a great support in helping them through their struggle.

While all these families are blessed with an abundance of supportive family and friends, including their employers, only those who have gone through a similar loss can truly understand what it means to bury a child.

"From our group sessions, we learn, talk, listen, cry and share. Actually we find it difficult to leave each other when the session is over. I never thought that we would have developed new friendships this way," Desma says.

These families have discovered professional resources and books such as The Purpose-Driven Life by Rick Warren and Healing After Loss: Daily Meditations For Working Through Grief by Martha W. Hickman. "I've gained so much strength and so much spirituality from the books I have read. Some of them were given to me by strangers and some by friends and Kallie's friends," Bunny says. "One book is just some little phrases, because that's all you can absorb and then there's a little paragraph. I used to read that every night to help me get to sleep. So I am a lot stronger, though I don't look like it now," she says, crying softly as the other parents wipe away their tears.

These parents agree that it's the combination of the resource material and the support received from each other that helps them face each day.

"We meet every two weeks and I find myself longing for that time to come," Arlene says. "The group has become my lifeline, too," Desma adds.

The men in the room listen as their wives do most of the talking. 

All four mothers say journal writing helps them stay close to their loved ones. While one mother speaks of the positive things she writes, another confides that she hasn't yet come that far. Her writing is still so full of sadness, she admits. That will change with time, the others tell her.

As the interview continues, these moms and dads lose themselves in comforting and supporting one another. There are tears of happy times now preserved as treasured memories.

However, the pain in the room is as obvious as the large, framed pictures of Matthew, at various ages, hanging above the chesterfield where his father sits.

While these parents carry the memories of their children deep within their hearts, they share their concerns over losing such treasured photographs and possessions that meant so much to their children.

"When we get together like this, we can let our feelings out and talk about them. And then we can see that what we're feeling is normal. Because they're feeling the same way," Desma says, as another mother talks about how precious the pictures of her child have become. "We all feel our world has fallen apart.

And that's because it has," she adds.

When contacted for comment on his suggestion that these families meet, Singleton says such mutual support can be extremely powerful. "These parents' experience and perspectives can only be truly shared with others going through similar experience," he says.

The next meeting of the support group is scheduled for Tuesday at 1 p.m. at the Health Sciences Centre Chapel.

For further information on the group, call Dr. Rick Singleton at 777-6959 or visit www.matthewchurchill.ca