GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. ” Bonnie Embry lost her 34-year-old daughter in January of 2004. Tereasa Baker lost her 18-year-old daughter in December of 2005.

The two Glenwood Springs women have now started a local support group to help others who share the grief of having lost a child. The support group is called Coming Together.

“Losing a child is such an unnatural event,” Embry said. “We want to let people know that they’re not alone.”

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The first meeting was held on March 15.

“The first few meetings, we’re kind of getting a feel of what people want from it,” Baker said. “I think that by talking about something you have in common with other people, it brings strength and growth. By helping others, I’m helping myself as well.”

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But not everyone wants to join a grief group. Some people prefer to handle their feelings in a more private manner.

“It’s all in the timing,” Baker said. “The first six or seven months, I never answered my phone. I didn’t open my curtains. I hated God. I hated everything.”

Embry was just the opposite.

“I joined every club I could find,” she said. “Everyone is so different.

Desiree Carpenter of Silt lost her 16-year-old son, Zachary Schwartz, in a car accident in July 2006. She says that while she doesn’t oppose a support group, she’s got mixed feelings about joining one.

“I am not sure what to think of a support group,” Carpenter said. “It is almost like a club you don’t want to be a member of. I hate when people say anything about healing. This isn’t some kind of wound that will go away. This is your sweet child gone from this life with you forever.”

Coming Together meets for an hour at 6 p.m. on the third Thursday of each month in the lobby of Valley View Hospital in Glenwood Springs. There is no charge and anyone is welcome to attend.

“We’re not grief counselors, I just want to get together and talk,” Baker said.

For more information, contact Embry at 319-5794 or Baker at 618-4520.