High-tech angel helps grievers
09/05/1999
By Marcia Shottenkirk
Staff Writer
"I understand."Two words uttered so frequently every day. But, so often, without meaning.
To the woman who has lost her husband, the mother who has lost her daughter, the sister who has lost her brother -- we speak those words.
And, even though the words seem to flow naturally from our lips, maybe it's a phrase better left to those who have lived through a similar loss.
"Unless you've grieved for someone, you can't understand that it's a sadness that never goes away," said Judy Divers, whose husband, Bill, died of pancreatic cancer seven years ago.
After losing her companion of nearly 30 years, it was her desire to find someone who could empathize with her, rather than solely sympathize.
That desire led Divers to
start a number of support groups through the Internet.Call her a high-tech angel.
"I had a vision that this could be something that could reach hundreds of thousands of people," Divers said by phone from her Florida home. "It's pretty overwhelming that it's done just that."
Shortly after Bill's death, Divers developed Grief Recovery Online Founded by Widows and Widowers, www.groww.org.
"There's such a bond among the people who enter the chat rooms," she said. "We're all there for the same reason -- to grieve for someone we've lost and see how someone else has coped and survived."
As the chat rooms fill with the bereaved, there comes a time for a face-to-face gathering, she said.
The Midwest gathering will be Sept. 24-26 in Oklahoma City. More than 50 people from Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana and California are expected to attend.
The group is planning a Bricktown outing, a visit to the Alfred P. Murrah bombing memorial, a tour of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame and Western Heritage Center, a Saturday night dinner and dance, a book signing and a white elephant auction to raise funds for GROWW, which remains a nonprofit organization.
The group is also crafting a quilt made from clothes their loved ones wore.
Through the years, Divers has opened chat rooms not only for widows and widowers, but for siblings, teen-agers, even for those affected by a loved one's suicide.
"GROWW lets them know that it's OK to feel like they do, and, no, the hurt won't ever go away," she said. "But one day you'll learn that you can still live a meaningful life."
Divers has found that purpose in her life.
"What I've done since Bill died has been for him and because of him," she said. "GROWW is his legacy.
"There won't ever be an end to death, so I don't see there being an end to this."
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