Facing the future together
By Lisa Dahm
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Experiencing grief is an inevitable part of life. How someone handles their suffering — and if there is a hand to guide them through their journey — makes all the difference.
According to the pastor of Mary, Star of the Sea Church in Waialae-Kahala, addressing that grief and helping people properly heal as they navigate the loss of a loved one is an important mandate for all Catholics.
“To experience death in the family, especially when you have lost a loved one, it is tough,” said Blessed Sacrament Father Frankie de los Reyes. “We need a kind of support group.”
Mary, Star of the Sea’s support group was established a decade ago with a core group of volunteers, which included parishioner Teddy Adorable. She described her involvement with the ministry, called Healing Hearts, as a “God incident.”
A year after her mother died at age 104, Adorable was still having a difficult time with her grief. Providentially, or God-incidentally, Father de los Reyes invited her to assemble a core group of volunteers to create a bereavement ministry.
The eight parishioners who volunteered included a nurse and a psychiatrist who were instrumental in building the program. The team also received extensive training through St. Francis Hospice, and implemented the national “Seasons of Hope: Finding Comfort in your Grief,” a program created in 2007 by M. Donna MacLeod, to guide them.
Father de los Reyes said the parishioners chose to call their bereavement ministry Healing Hearts because they wanted to focus on easing the pain of people in their community who were grieving and provide comfort, support and encouragement as well as educational and social opportunities.
Thirteen years later, Adorable understands the grief process and has lost her own fear of death in the process.
“We always accept them where they are at,” Adorable said of new participants. “When they first come, they are very fragile and don’t want to talk. The more meetings they come to, the more they start opening up; it is so refreshing.”
A caring team
The group meets in four, six-week sessions throughout the year. Participants can attend one session or all of them.
Healing Hearts facilitator Debbie Galipeau was a hospice nurse with St. Francis Hospice for almost 12 years. She prays for each participant before every meeting and includes them in her daily prayers that they may find some relief from their grief.
Galipeau lost her own husband, Roger, to cancer in 1997, and came to Oahu to care for her mother, who died in 2001. When Healing Hearts began, her friend Adorable invited her to help build the program.
Galipeau said that each person experiences grief on his or her own timetable — there is no standard period for grieving.
She said the goal is to let the person know they are being heard, are loved and are in a safe place to tell their story.
Facilitator Alysa Kanani Makahanaloa said when participants first join, they are typically at the worst time in their grieving process, and many cry through the meeting.
“Usually, by the end of the six weeks, they are a completely different person,” Makahanaloa said. “They are right in the middle of their grief when they start. When we are done — sometimes it takes them more than one season — when they stick with us, you will see a complete change.”
Finding peace
Sergia Chee is a parishioner from St. Patrick Church in Kaimuki, just a few miles from Mary, Star of the Sea.
“For me at the beginning, I wouldn’t say anything because I didn’t know what to say,” Chee said. “It was like opening your soul. Getting to know them was a challenge for me.”
She said that while grieving, the experience often brings up earlier deaths of loved ones, especially if the person did not mourn their loved one properly. Chee said their discussions often transition to other topics, such as how different cultures experience grieving and honoring the dead.
Participant Peter Nazarino’s wife, Darlene, passed away in 2017 from lung cancer at 63 years old. They were married for 44 years; he was his wife’s caregiver until her death.
He joined Healing Hearts shortly after at the recommendation of a counselor at St. Francis Hospice. Nazarino has now started a Healing Hearts group at his own parish, St. Joseph Church in Waipahu.
He said the hardest part for him was accepting his wife’s death, though she made him promise to continue for their children and grandchildren.
“The focus is not on the dying but on God loving us and you having to love,” Nazarino said. “This December it will make eight years (since her death). I still mourn. I was a mess when I went to my first meeting — my mind was not thinking about God. But through them I realized I am not alone.”
Father de los Reyes said he is proud of his parishioners for their dedication to helping others through a time when they need others the most yet are often reluctant to seek help.
“Death is not the end — It is the doorway to eternal life,” he said. “As painful as it is to lose a loved one, there is hope. There is something that we look forward to, and we yearn that someday, we will see each other again.”
For more information on the program, email Makahanaloa at healingheartshawaii@gmail.com or call the Mary, Star of the Sea parish office at (808) 734-0396.