‘There is no timetable for grieving’
Stratford VFW program helps deal with loss
STRATFORD — Bob Johnson’s wife died in a car accident in 2016. Consumed with grief, Johnson didn’t know where to turn for help. He tried a counseling service but it wasn’t available for the holidays, when he said he needed it the most.
“I went through Thanksgiving and Christmas alone, mourning the loss of my wife,” Johnson said.
So Johnson decided to be there for others in his shoes, who had endured the death of a loved one and felt alone in the world. Johnson, 73, hosts a weekly grief counseling service at the Stratford Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9460. He said the people that come to these sessions tend to be older, which is no surprise. Elderly people are more likely to live in isolation especially during the pandemic, which can have serious effects on their health, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Johnson began his counseling work over the summer, as the pandemic began to ease. He attended training sessions with a counselor who runs her own program out of Hamden. He started to post fliers around local churches, funeral homes and assisted living facilities.
Few people attended these sessions, but he was heartened any one came at all.
“We’ve had a pretty good response. But most of our meetings, in the past two months have involved just four, two, maybe five people at a time,” he said.
While the pandemic has led to an expansion of telehealth services, which also includes mental health services, Johnson said nothing beats the human touch. The way his program works is, people who attend go over a specific aspect of the grieving process. The discussions are lively and loose. And while no one is expected to participate, anyone can speak if they choose to.
And people do.
“It’s interesting how people will sit in a room with other people who are feeling the same feelings as they are, and within a few minutes, they start to open up,” he said. “And each night, each time
we’re done with a meeting, you can see the difference in the people. They get something out of it.”
The program lasts eight weeks, but people are welcome to attend as long as they want, he said.
“We have people that come back for a second or
third time around. There is no timetable for grieving,” he said.
Everyone has their own ways of processing loss, Johnson said. For some, that includes religion. Others may feel that the deity they believed in has abandoned them, he said. Though the meetings are
not overtly religious, they don’t shy away from the topic either, he said.
And for residents who might want to attend meetings but can’t because they lack transportation or live in a care facility, Johnson said he and his partner bring the meetings to them.
“I’m also reaching out at the moment to assisted living apartments in Stratford and a couple other towns because those are the people that live alone,” he said. “Some of them are a widow, or widower and they don’t have any family. So who do they talk to?”