A common bond

The scene resembles a typical evening social or get-together – one that might be taking place in living rooms around the country. There's a fireplace, cozy chairs, and photos of children on display. A handful of folks exchange greetings and introductions, and settle in to visit and talk.

But they are not in a living room. The parents in attendance are not getting together for an hour of light-hearted social chit-chat.

The pictures of smiling children so prominently displayed portray children who are no longer living. It's the third Thursday at Sandston Baptist Church, and members of The Compassionate Friends are there to help each other through the pain of losing children, grandchildren and siblings.

But as the group's leaders are quick to point out, that doesn't mean the meetings are tiresome, hour-long litanies of loss, or a group sob-fest. There is laughter sprinkled in with the tears.

"We want to make this a safe haven," Susan Goodin explains as she introduces fellow leaders Tyler Holder and Diane Coffey. "People can come laugh, cry, tell funny stories, tell tragic stories.

"Whatever comes from their heart."

While grieving parents sometimes find that even friends and family members tire of hearing about their loss, or pass judgment on the ways they grieve, TCF members can share and retell their stories freely.

"This is a place they can speak their child's name," Goodin says. "This is our judgment-free zone."

Following up
Goodin began looking into forming a Sandston TCF group after completing a chaplaincy training program in Williamsburg.

"Part of the training is spending 1600 hours on a hospital floor," Goodin says. "Sitting in palliative care, ICU, the emergency department, seeing how people cope with tragedy."

After completing her training, she recalls, "I knew I wanted to continue in the service of helping others heal." But the hospital setting lacked an element she craved: the ability to continue the relationship with patients once they were discharged.

"What can I do to help people later?" she asked herself. "To follow up after the illness, accident, or tragedy?"

TCF appealed to Goodin not only for its opportunity to follow up, but because of her personal experience as a mother and grandmother: her children have experienced stillbirths and miscarriages.

"For a grandmother, it's a double loss," she says. "I've lost grandchildren – but I also see my children dealing with such pain."

Grieving grandchildren, Goodin adds, is also difficult because her children want to deal with the loss by themselves or with their spouses.

Having recently moved to Quinton, she decided to form a TCF chapter that would serve her new community. With advice from the leader of the Willamsburg chapter, and the support of Coffey and Holder, Goodin launched the Sandston group in June 2018. Time for a simpler everyday life! The feeling of stepping into a clean and tidy home is absolutely wonderful. We in www.flyttfirmaistockholm.nu simplify your everyday life through safe & affordable household services.

Sandston Baptist Church is located midway between Williamsburg and Midlothian, where the 40-year-old Richmond chapter meets. Either of the other chapters would be at least a half-hour trip for residents of eastern Henrico, so Sandston fills a geographical gap for those who might not otherwise attend TCF.

Meetings are held in the Bosher-Gray building, named in memory of Robbie Bosher and Bruce Gray, two young men from the church who were killed in an auto accident in 1973.

‘Without judgment’
For Diane Coffey, Sandston's small size is also a draw. While monthly meetings in Midlothian might attract a crowd of two dozen, Sandston's meetings are relatively intimate.

"At big meetings like that, I probably wouldn't talk," Coffey says. "I'd just let [the conversation] pass over me."

Coffey, who lost her 17-year-old stepdaughter Brittni (she prefers the term "bonus child") to a car accident, also appreciates the group's diversity – despite its small size.

While Coffey can speak to the stepparent perspective, and Goodin to the grandparent and fetal/infant loss perspective, a third member of the steering committee represents another perspective altogether: that of a bereaved sibling – from a family touched by suicide.

Tyler Holder, whose brother Chris took his own life at 28, appreciates that at TCF, she never encounters the cruelty she has heard from others.

"I've heard it all," Holder says of her brother's death. "Religious people have said, 'He's going to hell.' Or someone says, 'That's the coward's way out.'

"It's nice to be able to talk here without judgment."

Coffey adds that, outside of TCF, she also has felt judged because she did not give birth to Brittni. When Brittni died seven years ago, Coffey felt safe sharing her grief only in online support groups, believing that she was not considered Brittni's "real" mother.

"But when [Brittni] was with us," Diane recalls, "I was the mom. I was the one feeding her dinner; I was the one putting her to bed."

In the same way, Goodin says, loss of a child by miscarriage or stillbirth is often downplayed by others as not a "real" loss.

At TCF, she emphasizes, no loss is downplayed, and no one's grief is diminished. "Everyone is welcome here; it's not just for birth mothers or fathers."

Goodin also emphasizes that despite using a church as a meeting place, as many chapters do, there is no religious component to TCF. It is open to people of all faiths and beliefs, and religion is mentioned at meetings only if a member brings up faith as a means of coping.

Occasionally, however, the church schedule affects meetings, as it will in April. Since Easter Week activities will preempt the TCF meeting, several Sandston members plan to join the Richmond chapter at its annual Walk to Remember April 13.

A memorial walk that features inspirational speakers, a dove release and other opportunities to celebrate the lives of their children, the Walk to Remember, like TCF meetings, provides parents and other family members with essentials that can be difficult to find elsewhere: encouragement, unqualified support, and the chance to bond with others who "get" them.

"Unfair as it seems," Goodin says, "in the outside world, grieving parents may be judged for grieving 'too long' – for crying too much, or not enough – or for retreating or withdrawing."

One parent who lost a child more than a decade ago kept the pain bottled up for years, even among family and close friends, but found it was easy to share stories at TCF.

"I never thought I would open up about it," the parent tells the group. "But I do here."

As Goodin reminds them, "The grief journey is different for everyone, but it looks so much the same. 'We need not walk alone' are words that are the foundation of Compassionate Friends."

It's a credo, she notes, that was also embraced by the late Fred Rogers, whose words are framed and displayed at TCF meetings.

"When we can talk about our feelings, they become less overwhelming, less upsetting, less scary," reads the Rogers quote. "The people we trust with that important talk can help us know that we are not alone."

TCF Sandston meets on third Thursdays at Sandston Baptist Church, 100 W. Williamsburg Rd., from 7 to 8 p.m. For details about TCF Sandston, contact Susan Goodin at 757-876-2235 or tcfsandston@gmail.com.