Sharing one's story helps process of grief

Sherwood Park parish ministry will help parishioners grieve

- Design Pics photo Grieving is best done in the company of others, says counsellor Jocelyn Roy.

By RAMON GONZALEZ
WCR Staff Writer
Sherwood Park

Grieving - the painful physical, emotional and spiritual journey that we go through to come to terms with the loss of somebody through death, separation or divorce - is among the most sacred and the most human things one will ever undergo, says Jocelyne Roy, a Catholic pastoral counsellor.

At the same time, grieving can be incredibly stressful, said Roy. Nevertheless, we need to face the pain in order to undergo healing.

"We have to live through the pain," she said. "Some people aren't able to do that initially but part of healing is to eventually feel the loss and to integrate the loss into our lives in some way."

A loss changes people, she noted. If a married person becomes a widow or a widower, they have a new identity to integrate into their present reality.

How people grieve depends largely on the type of relationship they had with the deceased, the counsellor said.

"If there are things like unfinished business that can complicate the grieving," she noted. "Certainly if it was a close, intimate relationship it'll be a different kind of grief than for someone who maybe we only saw sometimes."

Whatever the case, grieving is best done in the company of others, she said.

Roy is helping Sherwood Park's Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish relaunch its grief ministry. She will give four informational sessions on grief to a group of parishioners in November.

Sacred process

The idea behind the sessions is "to validate people's feelings and to give them a chance to tell their story.

"Part of grief is telling the story over and over and over," she said. "I guess I come from the belief too that (grieving) is a very sacred (process). Sharing it helps us to grow and to heal and to make sense of things in whatever way we make sense of it."

OLPH's grief ministry was terminated in 2005 after 10 years, largely due to "lack of response." Now the parish is restarting it at the request of parishioners who have recently suffered losses, said pastoral assistant Sandra King.

King and pastoral assistant Lucille Rezac will oversee the grief ministry, which will consist of at least three month-long series a year. They hired Roy to facilitate the series, the first of which will be held in November.

Interest is so high "we already have enough people to run another session in January or February," added King.

Whether the program will become a permanent ministry will depend on Roy's schedule as well as parishioners' interest, she said.

About 50 people die annually at OLPH and many of those affected by these losses have been invited to participate.

Stages of grief

Until now King and Rezac, both of whom assist with funeral preparation at OLPH, have referred grieving people to counsellors in the County of Strathcona. People sometimes come to them for advice and they do what they can.

"But we are not counsellors; we are pastoral assistants," King said. "We can listen but if we understand that the person maybe needs more than just us then we would suggest they see a counsellor."

Roy has topics in mind for the November sessions.

"We are going to talk about the early stages of grief when people are shell- shocked. As we progress through the grief experience we will address some of the normal grief processes, the different feelings - like anger, depression and loss of identity. Then we will be talking about the spiritual dimension," she explained.

"Your grieving is among the most sacred and the most human thing you will ever do," she added, quoting from a book on grief. "It will plummet you into the mysteries of life."

Roy and the OLPH group will also talk about loneliness and "how part of coming through grief is beginning to see what I have left and where I can go from here."

If participants want to continue in some way "we can look at that possibility," Roy said. "Hopefully it'll give some way they can continue to find the support that they need if they need ongoing support."

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