Hope for the holidays
Judy and Joe Micieli’s son died in 2012. And now, they are helping others at Christmas
On stage, there will be one empty chair.
It will represent the void felt when a love one dies.
“The deeper we love, the deeper we grieve,” says Judy Micieli. “Grief doesn’t end because our love doesn’t end.”
This will be the seventh Christmas for Judy and her husband Joe, without their son, Nick.
He died suddenly in 2012 at age 22, killed when he was struck by a parked van that was hit from behind. Nick was part of a road crew in Milton.
To help other parents in grief, Judy and Joe started the group, Walk with Me. Since 2014, some 35 people have gathered to share their stories and support each other.
On Saturday, Dec. 15, they will host Hope Through the Holidays, a safe place for people who have experienced the death of a loved one or who are estranged from family, she says.
The event will take place at Calvary
Church in St. Catharines from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Three people will share their personal stories of loss and three professional counsellors will be available throughout the event to talk to people individually.
“We want to reach out to people who are hurting,” says Judy.
The hope is to give people a safe place to embrace their grief and remember loved ones.
The first Christmas after Nick’s death the couple “went through the motions,” she says.
They stayed at home and visited Nick at the cemetery several times Christmas Day.
To this day, they have not exchanged gifts.
“Life is different for us now,” she says. She wants people to know that it’s OK to create new traditions over the holidays, do what feels right for them and allow themselves permission to grieve.
When grieving people gather together, they realize they’re not alone and the compassion they have for each other is comforting, she says.
“We all understand each other,” says Judy. “We can talk about our kids. We can laugh. We can cry.
“We can be who we are and no one will judge us.”