Thursday September 30, 2004

Support for grieving parents

CHAN Lilian has extended a hand to other parents who have lost children. She has developed an online grief support group at www.geocities.com/malaysianmomshare.

“For bereaved parents like us, having a website in honour of our children’s memories is something very precious,” she says. “We are comforted by the thought that a lot of people will get to know our deceased children and will be inspired by our stories.

“At first, I was part of a grief support group from the United States. However, I soon found that having different cultural backgrounds made things a bit difficult.

“We, Malaysians are so different in the way we manage our grief. Malaysians, for instance, are still very private people and are not very comfortable revealing our feelings,” she says. “Unfortunately, it is very hard for bereaved parents to bottle up their grief and not talk about it.

“Losing one’s child is very, very hard. And this is made worse when society does not know how to deal with parents like us.

“That is why I decided to start a support group for bereaved mothers in Malaysia,” she says. “It seemed like the most convenient way of getting in touch with people facing the same situation.”

Chan says she hopes that by encouraging more parents to be open about their grief, it will help others to start talking about their feelings too.

“I also hope that with more bereaved parents talking about their feelings, this will create an awareness among Malaysians, thus helping everyone to better cope with loss and grief.”

Chan says that by talking and acknowledging her own feelings, she has been able to pick up the pieces and start living her life again.

Chan’s grief support group currently has about 25 members.

(excerpt from Star Intech)