Compassionate Friends

I went to Bereaved Parents of Middlesex County tonight. It’s a part of The Compassionate Friends, a support group for parents, grandparents, and siblings of a child, grandchild, or sibling who has died.

I hadn’t been for a long time: nearly a year and a half. But I had an experience last week at our church’s wreathmaking party: the first much-anticipated holiday event of the season. There’s a program (this year it was Benjamin Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols complete with a harpist), and the  optional making of wreaths. (Mine hangs on my kitchen porch.) The congregation sings a few Christmas carols. I love Christmas, especially the music. But as the first chords of the organ sounded, I started to weep, holding myself so I wouldn’t shake with sobs. Slamming into an unforeseen brick wall.

A few days later I was visiting a friend in the hospital and told him of my experience. “There’s no expiration date on grief,” he wisely said.

So, tonight I went to Compassionate Friends. I actually went last night, but found one other mother standing outside the darkened church building. We had a good, healing conversation. She asked, “Does it get better?” I wish I had words for it: better is not quite it. But, yes, I can now feel happiness and even joy and can hear a helicopter without being overcome with gut-wrenching emotion.

We later found out the meeting had been changed to Tuesday. I had received an email about the change, but when I received it I wasn’t planning to go, so I'd forgot about it.

Each story is different: the commonality is the heartbreak and heartache. I had forgotten the closing tradition. We stand together, holding hands around the table and speak our child’s name, “Good night, David.” That is very powerful and catches me off-guard every time. I can barely speak his name. I realize that I’m not able to truly wish David good night. I’m crying right now, as I write this. It’s a lonely, desolate feeling.

It’s a comfort to meet together, in “the club no one wants to join.”