Joliet grief counselor offers hope for those suffering on Mother’s Day

Grief is like a person sitting on a bench, always waiting for you.

Or grief is like an iceberg – more than what people can see on the surface.

Metaphors are a wonderful tool for describing grief, said Patrice Martin, director of grief support at Lightways Hospice and Serious Illness Care in Joliet.

“We love metaphors, and our clients love them,” Martin said.

Martin said grief counselors offer a variety of tools to help people cope with loss. What works for one person might not work for another, she said.

Metaphors help people who are grieving describe the indescribable. Martin said a common metaphor is that grief is like an out-of-control roller coaster.

“You don’t get to decide when it goes up or down or twists or goes backward,” Martin said.

Martin may ask clients to describe grief’s shape, or she may compare grief to wearing a backpack weighed down with heavy stones.

“You think you can just throw them out one by one over time. But that’s not how it works,” Martin said. “You just learn how to get a stronger back and carry them in a healthy way.”

Support groups for people who’ve specifically lost children are especially helpful since people find “an instant connection” and support one another, Martin said.

People new to the group often say, “In support group, I don’t have to pretend I’m doing OK. I can just be myself,” Martin said. And those whose grief is “fresh and new” can learn hope from others who are no longer “in such a dark place,” she said.

The circumstances surrounding the loss are different, but that’s not where the connection lies.

“They connect with each other over the type of loss that they’ve had, the loss of a child,” Martin said. “So it’s a very unique loss. Because not a lot of people out there have lost children. It’s a smaller group, and it’s a lot more stigmatized, especially with the traumatic deaths. They feel more isolated.”

Talking about the loss one-on-one with a grief counselor can help, too, she said. It’s especially helpful with “unexpected, unnatural loss, things people feel could have been prevented,” she said.

“These are very hard to make sense of,” Martin said. “So a lot of our clients will want to talk to a counselor just to review everything they did or didn’t do, asking, ‘Did we miss something?’ and going through regrets, doubts and questions.”

Martin said losing a child at any age is an especially difficult loss for people.

“We’re the caregivers of our kids; we’re here to protect them, to keep them from harm,” Martin said. “So I think that’s a particularly difficult thing to think about as a parent.”

People sometimes worry if they are even grieving properly since they feel so sad, Martin said.

“The goal is not to grieve 100% of the time. That would be overwhelming,” Martin said. “We want to help them find the right balance that they need between avoiding grief and wallowing in grief.”

Martin said grief counseling also gives people the opportunity to simply talk about their children.

“That’s often how we end our groups,” Martin said. “Everyone shares a favorite or funny memory of their kid. They talk about their children outside whatever the circumstances of their death, but as a whole person.”

For more information about grief support services, visit lightways.org/griefsupport and missingpiecesgrief.org/support.