Witness Kate's mom in this article. For those of you who do not have the pleasure of knowing Maureen Walsh, may I just say- she is awesome. And now she's outdone herself in terms of her own awesomeness. Which, quite frankly, I figured was impossible.
She's opened a grief counseling center in Weymouth, MA and let me tell you something- short of my own divine parents, I cannot think of another single person on this earth whom I would want to comfort me in hard times. The following article is long but I'm showing it in its entirety anyway because it's my blog and I do what I want.
So there.
‘Grief Weavers’ helps clients integrate death, loss into life
By Maureen Walsh
Wed Jan 30, 2008, 12:10 PM EST
Wadsworth and her fiancé Christian Rubins are now 26 and planning their wedding in two months, but their lives together have been forever shaped and changed by the stillbirth of their daughter, Mackenzie Elizabeth, on December 13, 1999.
“She looked just like Chris. She had a ton of hair. She was a carbon copy of her father, except her fingers were really long and dainty,” said Wadsworth. “Losing a child is indescribable. When I think back to that day, it’s the exact same raw pain, even eight years later.”
To cope with her ongoing feelings of loss, Wadsworth was referred last year to Grief Weavers LLC, a new bereavement support practice founded by two board certified thanatologists: Emily Lazar, MS, a genetics counselor, and Maureen Walsh, RN (no relation to this reporter), a school nurse and health educator.
Grief Weavers helps clients suffering many different kinds of loss to acknowledge and understand their grief and integrate it into their lives.
“We know that you don’t get over it, that there’s no such thing as closure,” said Lazar. “The new theories about loss are about continuing the bond to the person who is not there. The relationship hasn’t ended, just changed.”
Grief is about more than death and dying, she said. Some clients are coping with infertility, with a medical diagnosis, with children’s feelings of loss in a divorce. Others are coping with so-called “disenfranchised grief,” a grief that is not recognized or supported by society.
It’s a myth, she said, that people go through stages of grief and then they’re done. “It’s an evolving process as new events and changes occur in one’s life.”
The first year after her daughter’s death, Wadsworth said she was focused on getting pregnant again. She miscarried soon after Mackenzie’s first anniversary.
“After that, we decided we needed to focus again on us, on our relationship. I hope we do have a healthy baby after we get married and have a ‘normal’ life, but our lives are forever changed because of her.”
Something missing
“Amanda was a young teen mom with no support,” said Lazar. “She knew something was missing in her life. She felt empty. She felt stuck. She felt like people expected her, because she was young and not married, to get over it and move on.”
“Grief Weavers helped her to be able to acknowledge her loss and to share her memories of her daughter. The beauty is that she is still with the same person and they are getting married. She’s done a lot of work, but it took her eight years. It’s been a real struggle.”
Wadsworth and Rubins also had to contend with the discomfort many people feel around those who are bereaved, and the short time the culture allows people to grieve openly.
“It is uncomfortable for people to sit with those in pain, but it’s what people who are grieving need for the most part,” Lazar said. “When the calls and the cards stop coming is when people are in need the most.”
“For a long time, I didn’t know it was okay to talk about Mackenzie,” said Wadsworth. “It helps just remembering her and knowing other people remember her. Even though we don’t have other children, on Mother’s Day Chris will say ‘Happy Mother’s Day’ to me and I’ll do the same to him on Father’s Day.”
“On her birthday, we’ll say, ‘Oh, she’d be...’ For a couple of years, when she’d be two or three, we went to Edaville Railroad for her birthday.”
Wadsworth and Rubins are learning to weave the loss of their daughter into the pattern of their lives. They hope one day they can provide peer support for other bereaved parents, and Wadsworth has simple advice for those who don’t know how to offer comfort.
“There’s no need to try to say something to make them feel better. Just listen, let them talk about the baby, let them cry, give them a hug. Those things are far more helpful.”
Journey of loss
As a genetic counselor at South Shore Hospital, Lazar has spent 20 years helping individuals and couples cope with high-risk pregnancies and reproductive loss. Several years ago, her own son, born slightly prematurely, died suddenly from an infection.
“His name was Matan Lev, which means ‘a gift of the heart,’ and that’s what he was all about,” Lazar said. “He had two amazing weeks of life. We try to honor the moments that people have had with their loved ones, because every moment counts.”
Her son’s death made her realize the need for more support for people beyond the initial period of loss, Lazar said. She enrolled in a 60-credit-hour program on death, dying and bereavement offered through the National Center on Death Education at Mount Ida College.
There she met Maureen Walsh, school nurse at Saint Francis Xavier School in South Weymouth, and a certified coordinator and facilitator of Rainbows, an international grief support program for children. Both completed the course and passed the board exam for certification by the Association for Death Educators and Counselors.
“As a nurse, I was always interested in caring for people who were terminally ill,” said Walsh. Anyone who is grieving has always been a strong interest of mine.”
The Rainbows program she facilitates at St. Francis Xavier is geared toward children who have suffered loss through death, divorce or abandonment, she said. Small groups meet weekly for about 15 or 16 weeks and follow a curriculum that allows kids to help each other under the guidance of a trained Rainbows facilitator.
“Kids grieve in bits, in small bites,” said Walsh. “It’s not unusual for a child to be told that Grandpa has died and then to say, ‘I’m going to play now.’ Kids learn about the world, about grief, through play. They can only take little bits. They keep coming back to ask questions.”
Up to the age of 8 or 9, many children can’t comprehend “forever,” she said. Even when death has been explained to them, they may continue to ask when Daddy is coming back.
“Kids also re-grieve at every developmental stage in life. If their father died when they were four, they will re-grieve when they go to middle school, when they go to high school, maybe when they make the baseball team and Dad’s not there, when they graduate and Dad’s not in the audience. They never get over the grief.”
Divorce is another loss that children grieve in different ways throughout their lives, she said, and involves other issues, such as going back and forth for the holidays, parents dating and stepfamily relationships.
“Healing art” is a particularly helpful tool in helping children to grieve. Walsh asks children to bring in clothing and other scraps of material that they associate with their loss, and she helps them to make a small quilt or a pillow.
“They have a memory to take home with them. They can wrap the quilt around themselves if they need comforting,” she said. “We can transfer pictures to material and they can write memories around it. They can do all sorts of things.”
While the children are helping to make their memory quilts or pillows, they are also sharing their memories and their feelings with Walsh. “The big thing is, it’s a vehicle for communication with the child, and it’s also a memory maker for the child,” she said.
Grief is normal
Lazar and Walsh began laying the groundwork for Grief Weavers in the summer of 2006 and incorporated in September 2007.
“We’re a support practice. We’re helping people through the journey of loss at all ages,” Lazar said. “We have expertise, but everybody is the expert in their own grief. Everyone experiences loss, but it takes skills that we don’t grow up with. We walk with them and give them suggestions and support and reassurance that they are not alone.”
Grief Weavers offers individual, couples and group support based on the “companioning” model of Dr. Alan Wolfert, PhD, director of the Center for Loss and Life Transition, which trains facilitators to assist people who are grieving.
The name “Grief Weavers” comes from a folk-tale-style story written by Walsh while she and Lazar were facilitating a group for bereaved parents who had experienced pregnancy, newborn and infant deaths.
“It’s a beautiful story about a couple’s journey on the loss of a child and how they learned the only way to deal with the pain is to weave the loss into your life,” said Lazar. “You have to take on the components of that person’s life that you can carry with you.”
“Grief is a normal process of life,” said Walsh. “While people who are grieving may need help, that doesn’t mean they are sick or broken. We are not treating them. We’re along for the journey.”
Grief Weavers LLC is based in Weymouth, but serves clients throughout the region. Many groups meet on Saturdays and Sundays. Services are provided on a flexible, sliding fee scale, and no one is turned away because of inability to pay.
Goals for the new bereavement practice include outreach to those who are grieving through hospitals, physicians, funeral homes, etc.; increased support for men who are grieving; development and training of a peer-to-peer support network; and ultimately a grief center to provide 24-hour drop-in support and resources for all who are dealing with loss.
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