The Hospice of Haines is offering a year-round version of its fall grief support group. Once a month, anyone grieving for any reason is invited to gather at the senior village. We spoke with group facilitator Jenn Hughes.
Each fall, the Hospice of Haines organizes a six-week grief support group. People sign up, and work through a curriculum. This is an intense time of grieving for participants. Now, the local hospice team has received requests for a more open-ended group that could meet year-round.
Resident Jenn Hughes is a divinity student and hospice volunteer. She is working through her chaplaincy internship, and will be facilitating monthly grief support meetings with a less formal approach.
Hughes: “I think we are going to leave it fluid. We’ll show up, we’ll create the safe space by offering some intentions that we all agree to around supportive listening, and acceptance and commitment to healing, confidentiality of course, we’ll probably do a little reading, like a poem, to really create that environment, and then, we’ll leave a lot of space for going around the room, to just check in on where people are at with whatever they are processing.”
Hughes says people are welcome to drop by, there is no requirement to sign up. Anyone feeling any kind of grief is welcome to join. Hughes says grief is our natural response to any loss, transition or change.
Hughes: “By that definition, it could be loss of a job, environmental change, a divorce or a relationship change. It’s extremely expansive, it’s broad, I would almost say that by that definition, all of us are grieving at any given moment. We are always experiencing change.”
Hughes says it is really common for people to want to quantify grief. But she says this is not a constructive approach.
Hughes: “It’s really common for us to want to create hierarchies around ’oh, my grief isn’t as big as yours, your loss is so much bigger.’ But ultimately it’s not a competition, it’s not the grief olympics. When we can share any little piece of it that we are touching, and we put it in this pot together, what it does is actually it brings us together and it just erodes that sense of being alone in whatever we are moving through.”
Hughes says there can be comfort in numbers. She trusts the group will bring relief to people experiencing grief. She says just knowing you can join a gathering of people willing to listen and empathize is positive, even if you don’t take advantage of it. She says she understands some days the thought of getting in a car and going somewhere can feel overwhelming. Yet she says showing up can make a big difference.
Hughes: “What I find is there is so much goodness in showing up in that room, and supporting each other, and realizing you are not alone, and that people care deeply about what you are going through, we always end up leaving lifted, and connected.”
The grief support group will be meeting every first Tuesday of the month, in the community room at the senior village.
