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Support group starting in Roaring Fork Valley

Alex Zorn
  

The holidays can be a hard time for grief, but starting next month, mothers and fathers, brother and sisters and grandparents will have a place to connect and share their grief with others in the Roaring Fork Valley.

On Tuesday, Nov. 14, The Compassionate Friends of the Roaring Fork Valley will be meeting for its first time at the Orchard Church in Carbondale.

The Compassionate Friends is a organization for close family members who are going through the grieving process following the death of a child of any age.



“We have found that there are so many child deaths of all ages in this valley and there’s just not enough grief counseling for them,” said Tina Rochowiak, who helped form the Compassionate Friends of the Roaring Fork Valley.

Tina Olson, a licensed professional grief counselor and chapter co-leader, said that parents who have lost children often feel very alone and this group will help to bring them together to ease the solitary suffering.



“A mother who’s been through it for three years and what she can say to new grieving mother — I can’t offer that,” Olson explained.

Olson hopes to not only see mothers come to the November meeting, but also fathers, grandparents and siblings.

She said that the emphasis will be how to grieve these unnatural deaths and how to say goodbye to a child.

Chapter leader Vivian Williams, who lost a daughter 14 years ago, said that she initially sought other avenues to take her grief, but couldn’t find many options in the valley. It wasn’t until she started to see it happen to more and more parents across the region that she decided a chapter of The Compassionate Friends should be started in the Roaring Fork Valley.

The first meeting will be 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at The Orchard in Carbondale.


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