Compassionate Friends offer support after loss

Jodie McWilliams used to lie on the couch, crying and waiting for her daughter to walk through the front door. Her mind knew Kellie was dead, but her heart hoped she wasn't.

"You do everything you can to want to live,” she said. "The hole in your heart is so huge that you can't imagine life even being normal again. And it never will be.”

McWilliams' daughter died June 28, 2003, of an accidental overdose of over-the-counter pain medicine.

McWilliams thought she would die, too — of a broken heart.

But strangers saved her life. She is one of thousands of people worldwide who are members of The Compassionate Friends, a nonprofit organization designed to support parents whose children have died. Seven Oklahoma groups and more than 600 other clubs worldwide meet monthly.

McWilliams said the group saved her life, and now she's helping organize the 30th annual Compassionate Friends national conference, set for July 19-22 at the Cox Convention Center in Oklahoma City. More than 100 workshops and lectures are scheduled, and organizers expect more than 1,000 parents, grandparents, siblings, friends and professionals to attend.

One June night four years ago, McWilliam's daughter suffered from a severe migraine and started taking over-the-counter pain medicine. The pain wouldn't subside, and she eventually started vomiting. So she continued taking pills.

She eventually downed about 20 pills in a 15-hour period. The vomiting, turns out, was kidney failure disguised as a migraine symptom.

She died four days later.

Kellie never finished her senior year at Westmoore High School. The milestones McWilliams expected her daughter to pass never came — high school graduation, college, marriage, children.

McWilliams said her life all but ended. She forgot to eat; she might have a snack every day or every other day. When she tried to sleep, she'd dream of her daughter.

She thought she was going crazy.

"You don't know what you're doing. You don't know what you're saying. You have no idea what's going on around you,” McWilliams said.

As McWilliams continues to mourn, people have told her to get over Kellie's death. Friends have said things like, "I know how you feel. My cat died.” Others avoid conversations about Kellie or avoid McWilliams altogether.

But when McWilliams started attending Compassionate Friends group meetings, she finally discovered people who knew how she felt. One of those people is Ila Mae Beery of Norman.

Beery began attending Compassionate Friends meetings in the early 1980s. She lost three sons in separate accidents within a year.

"You go down to that dark pit,” she said, "and you can't get out, I tell you. I don't let myself get down in there any more because it's too hard to get out.”

The retired radiologist still attends meetings, and she sees parents who are going through the same phases she did.

She tries to help them as much as she can. "When you take on someone else's grief, your own starts to lessen,” she said. "You think, how in the world could that be? But that's the honest-to-goodness truth.”

Though Beery has lost her sons, she focuses on her daughter. "We had a wonderful, wonderful family,” Beery said, "and I still do. ... I thank God every day for giving me the privilege of being a mother to those three fine sons.”

Every parent copes differently, said McWilliams, who built a garden in her back yard as a reminder of her daughter.

Women want to talk more than men do, and some parents neglect their other children after a death, McWilliams said.

The parents who attend the meetings have lost children of all ages, from stillbirth to retirement age. "It doesn't matter how old they are,” she said. "Forever they're your children.”

Many days throughout the year are especially hard, McWilliams said. Most parents have a tough time on holidays, birthdays and the anniversaries of death.

"You never heal,” she said. "Never ever, ever do you heal.”