Aprille Hanson of Conway didn’t think she could survive her mother dying — but she did, with the help of Beacon of Hope Ministry through St. Joseph Catholic Church.
Hanson’s mother, Diane Oakland, had just celebrated her 47th birthday when she died March 25, 2012, of complications from lupus, an autoimmune disease. Hanson, who is 26, was 23 years old then.
“I always told anybody, ‘If anything ever happens to Mama, you just need to lock me up somewhere. I just couldn’t handle it,’” Hanson said.
She learned that with time — and support — she could handle her grief.
“Beacon of Hope saved my life,” she said.
Hanson, a graduate of the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, volunteers with Beacon of Hope and has launched a Facebook page for the ministry. She wants to bring awareness to the group, as well as the page.
Although she’s a member of St. Joseph Catholic Church, the support group is open to anyone, she said.
“I think the difference with our page and other grief resources is, we’re an organization [of people who have] been through losses,” Hanson said. “It’s people who really understand, and they’re not going to try to shove religion down your throat. We’re not trying to convert people to Catholicism.”
Kathy Kordsmeier of Greenbrier, a licensed therapist, started the ministry about 15 years ago.
“I was the one that felt the calling, so to speak, and was supported by the pastor at that time in pursuing it,” she said.
Kordsmeier and Hanson update the Facebook page. Kordsmeier said she was happy to have another way to reach people.
“I just felt like it was one more piece — one more tool to reach out to people. I like to use everything at our disposal to do that,” Kordsmeier said.
A support group, Sharing the Journey, meets at 5:30 p.m. the second Thursday of each month at the endowment office, 1315 College Ave. in Conway. Kordsmeier also offers free, individual grief counseling, and Hanson was a client.
Hanson said her parents were divorced when she was 18 months old, and she lived with her mother and her mother’s parents, whom she calls Nana and Papa. They moved from Chicago to Mountain Home when Hanson was 10.
“I claim Arkansas as home,” she said.
Hanson said her family was tight-knit; her mother was her best friend.
“She was very sweet. Early on, she was a preschool teacher; she just loved kids,” Hanson said. She said her mother loved to read and had an “absolutely beautiful” voice, which she shared by singing in church choirs. Hanson said her mother was happiest when they were swimming in Lake Norfork, or when she was with her dog, Daisy, a bichon.
Hanson said her mother was diagnosed in her 20s with lupus, and she had multiple operations through the years — bladder surgery, removal of her large intestine, a hip replacement, a shoulder replacement and others.
“She had so many different surgeries, but I always saw her come out of it,” Hanson said.
“I was just eight days shy of my 24th birthday. I was a complete mess, and I felt very alone as a young person who just lost her mother,” Hanson said.
Hanson, who was an associate editor with the newspaper Arkansas Catholc, before her mother died, Hanson wrote a column about grief and used Kordsmeier as a source.
“After Mama died, I ended up calling Kathy because I was in such a fog,” Hanson said. Hanson tried the Sharing the Journey support group, but she felt alone as the youngest member.
Kordsmeier and Hanson met for counseling sessions once a week for a year.
“She’s an amazing person, very faithful and just very dedicated,” Hanson said.
Kordsmeier said everyone grieves differently, and there is no timeline for it.
“What I emphasize is, No. 1, to anybody I have a chance to talk to who has experienced a loss, is to encourage them to tell their story as often as they can in different ways, whether that’s in writing, music, finding that person who can listen without judgment,” Kordsmeier said.
There’s not a good way or a bad way to grieve, Kordsmeier said. “Anger is probably the most difficult emotion of any of those — most people probably can’t even admit to it,” she said.
Hanson admits it.
“I had a lot of anger,” she said. “Every time I would see someone walking down the street, maybe a woman in her 40s, I’d think, ‘How does this person get to live, and Mama died?’”
Kordsmeier gave Hanson a foam pool noodle and told her to use it.
“When I was mad, I would beat the heck out of my bed, and it helped,” Hanson said, laughing.
Kordsmeier said she has several mechanisms to help people dealing with grief.
“We have a good library of resource material; we use CareNotes a lot — little booklets written by different people about different experiences. It always has good information. I just love them,” she said. “Right now, the group itself, we’ve used some different DVDs I’ve found.”
Hanson said her goal for the Facebook page is to help people who might not want to attend a support group or a counseling session.
“Facebook is huge with this generation,” she said. “What I’d like it to be is to pose questions: ‘Where are you in your grief journey today?’ That’s a question I’d like to propose and have people respond. They can say, ‘I’m having a good memory of that person,’ and tell their memories. I want it to be a spot where people don’t feel alone.”
Kordsmeier agreed.
“I want people to know they don’t have to do this alone,” she said.
For more information on Beacon of Hope Ministry, call Kordsmeier at (501) 269-1998, email her at kkordsmeier@outlook.com or visit the organization’s Facebook page. Search Beacon of Hope Ministry St. Joseph Conway.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.