Canterbury Cathedral - Funeral Procession, from Healing Window (Wikipedia)
Canterbury Cathedral - Funeral Procession, from Healing Window (Wikipedia) |
A friend of mine this year lost one of her children. By now I am a little better at showing genuine caring and concern. Yet still I am largely in unknown waters when witnessing another's intense grief.
She told me about an organization, The Compassionate Friends, which has a wealth of experience in such circumstances and has provided her with a lot of help in the past few months. This is a nationwide and even international connection of and for supportive parents who have lost children themselves, siblings of the lost kids, and grandparents of children who have died.
Its services are there for folks who have lost offspring of any age.
In a holiday period when we naturally are thinking about charitable giving, this appears also to be a worthy cause for generous gifts of either time or financial assistance.
The Compassionate Friends has chapters in many cities. In TX alone, for instance, besides their online support network, they are represented in at least 33 locations around the state.
No single individual or group can make things right after the loss of a child, but a resource of people who have gone through or are going through much the same thing can be one more tool to aid in the healing that needs to take place.