She can’t tell you what was said. She can only tell you that someone was there.
Michelle was just a couple of weeks into life without her son Corban when a bereaved mom she had never met offered to come sit with her. They stayed together for a few hours. The words have faded, but the feeling hasn’t.
“I don’t remember what I talked about or what I said, but I just remember her being here and understanding.”
That one quiet visit is what this livestream keeps coming back to. Gwen Kapcia, grief expert, joins Marcy and Michelle to look at the different kinds of support a grieving parent may need, from the kindness of everyone around us, to small group support, to one-on-one help. What stands out is how often it begins with someone simply showing up.
For Michelle, support has looked like many things over the years: Starlight, online groups for parents who have lost an only child, retreats where she could be surrounded by people who understand, five years of therapy, and a podcast she found in her first weeks of grief.
“It was my therapy to sit on my deck and listen to a few episodes.”
For Marcy, it began with a phone call to Gwen from the funeral home, and an invitation to sit on that orange couch. Years later, the conversation that began on that orange couch has grown into three Starlight groups led by six facilitators, offering others the same support they once received. Support doesn’t always need a curriculum, either. As one viewer shared, sometimes it’s a few moms gathering for lunch to feel “a sad, kind of normal together.”
And sometimes the effect of that support is a mystery to the person who gave it, as Gwen found when a stranger grabbed her elbow at a basketball game, said “You changed my life,” and walked away.
You may never know what your presence means to someone. Listen in, and let this episode remind you that you don’t have to walk alone, that the support that fits you may look different on different days, and that one day you may be the one who sits beside someone else.
Recent Comments