Meeting to help parents cope with the loss of a child

A bereavement councillor who runs weekend camps for grieving parents is to address an open meeting of the support group Anam Cara tonight (Wednesday).

Peter Hanlon works with Barretstown in Dublin – a specially-designed camp that provides Therapeutic Recreation programmes for children with serious illnesses and their families – and the HSE as a specialist in suicide bereavement.

He will speak to parents in the Galway branch of Anam Cara about the journey through grief and loss after the death of a son or daughter.

The free specialist talk tonight – one of two given in the nine regional groups every year –  is all about helping parents understand their grief, explains one of the founders of Anam Cara, former Galway resident Sharon Vard, who lost her daughter to a brain tumour at age 5.

“When you understand your grief it loses power over you. Initially parents feel so powerless. I’d lost my dad and I grieved. But when Rachel died come up on ten years, the carpet is just pulled completely from underneath you. You’re exhausted. You don’t know where to turn. It’s as physical as it is mental. You think you’re losing your mind.”

Set up by bereaved parents in 2008, the name Anam Cara translates as soul friend and was the title of the 1997 bestseller on Celtic spirituality by the late Galway-based author, poet and ex-priest John O’Donohue.

For parents who experience the sudden death of a child outside of a hospital or hospice, there is no follow up by authorities. This support group allows grieving parents to link up with each other and get group counselling from a professional free of charge.  The focus of the monthly parent evenings is on ‘peer support with appropriate professional intervention’.

In Galway that is provided by psychotherapist Grainne O’Connell.  ”We try and nomalise it. We do recognise where parents get stuck in anger and guilt – and they’re two of the most useless emotions, they take up a lot of energy but sometimes it’s easier than sadness. We try and walk them through their journey.”

Nationally, 2,500 families have to endure the experience every year. No matter what age the son or daughter was, or the circumstances of their death, to bury a child is unnatural, which is the reason why losing them is so difficult to bear.

“Meeting with parents a little further on in their journey gives newly bereaved parents some hope that in time, they too will find ways to cope with the intense grief and sense of loss,” said Sharon.

“There is comfort in knowing that you are not alone, that other families are dealing with the same tragedy, someone does understand.” Between 10 and 30 people attend the meetings, which take place on the first Wednesday of each month from 7.30pm to 9pm at Ballybane Enterprise Centre.