By Rachel Libby
I am a volunteer facilitator for Sharing Parents grief support meetings.
And if I’m going to be honest, I never look forward to doing it. The reasons range from petty (I don’t want to drive anywhere on a Sunday evening) to overwhelming: I simply cannot believe this is still happening to people. When my son, Oliver, died I went to the support meeting a few months later and heard people discuss their losses that had happened in May or June and I remember being stunned. I was shocked to learn that they had died after Oliver. I don’t know why, but I just assumed that Oliver had to be the last person who died this way. This terrible awful thing couldn’t keep happening to people. It wasn’t fair.
Now almost six years later it can be hard to gear myself up to drive out to a meeting on a Sunday night to bear witness to such sorrow because I’m still in disbelief that every day, every month, every year more and more people are joining this club.
And I rarely if ever feel like I’m qualified to help these parents.
But then I remind myself that almost six years ago when Oliver died all I wanted, all I needed was to sit in a room with people who were going through it, too. And more importantly, I needed to see facilitators who had been through it and were still standing. Who could tell their story with pride, who could remember the joy of their pregnancy and not just the desperation of their loss. Those facilitators gave me what I needed most. Honesty. Understanding. And hope.
When people ask me why I do the meetings now, I usually say I do it for Oliver. I do it because I get to share his story. I say I do it because that room is the only place I get to be Oliver’s mom and nothing else. Which is true. But really, selfishly, I do it for me. I do it for the me six years ago who desperately needed someone on the other side of the table saying, I’ve been through this and now I’m here and someday you can too.
If I can be that person for anyone, there’s just nowhere else I can be than in that room on a Sunday night.
And I drive home every time feeling grateful. Grateful for their sharing. Grateful for the opportunity to bear witness to sorrow. Grateful knowing that someday these parents will be sitting on the other side of the table too.
