Center for Life Experience reorganizes, restarts support groups
By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Alan Scheuerman spent years trying to cope with the death of his 2-year-old son, who died of spinal coccal meningitis.
"I was angry, but mostly at myself," he said. "I felt as a husband and a father that I was responsible for that child. It was my fault that this child got this disease and died.
"It took many, many years to work through that. It took 10 years to just stop hating myself," he said. "It took me another 30 years to understand that I couldn't have done anything differently that would have affected it in a positive manner and changed the outcome."
His wife of almost 38 years died of cancer in 2008. She was 55.
Two weeks after his wife died, he came to a Center for Life Experience support group.
"I sought them out because I didn't want to go through 10 years of what I went through the first time," he said. "It was a godsend for me. I was so thankful."
The first three months, Scheuerman couldn't find the words to talk about his losses.
"Every time I wanted to talk, I'd start crying," he said. "On the ride home I'd curse myself because I couldn't talk, but every month, the time would come around and I'd be at that meeting."
Today Scheuerman is on the board of Center of Life Experience.
After briefly being closed after the resignation of its executive director, the Center for Life Experience has reorganized and restarted its support groups.
The group offers three grief support groups. They are Healing After Loss, which is a general grief support group. Healing Hearts, which seeks to help parents who are grieving children and Healing After Loss of Suicide, which is for people who have lost friends or family members to suicide.
All the groups meet at Oak Park Plaza, 103 E. 27th, Ste. C, Hays.
• Healing After Loss meets on the third Tuesday of each month at 6:30 p.m.
• Healing Hearts meets on the second Thursday of each month at 6:30 p.m.
• Healing After Loss of Suicide meets on the first and third Wednesdays of each month at 6:30 p.m.
The Center for Life Experience is a nonprofit and all grief support groups are free to attend and confidential.
The group had a director, who handled both the business side of the non-profit and served as the groups' facilitator.
After the last director's resignation in December, the group decided to reorganize. The board is searching for a director who will handle the business side of the non-profit, and it will contract with trained facilitators to work with the three grief support groups.
"There's a lot of work — too much work for one person," said Scheuerman, group treasurer. "The one that's taking care of the financing and making sure everything meets everyone's needs does not have the ability to keep up with that and also keep abreast of what's going on with each group and the group members."
During the pandemic, the groups lost members. Most members wanted to meet in person, and at times, that was not possible.
Scheuerman said since the groups resumed in March, they have had strong attendance. They have attracted attendees from across northwest Kansas. A woman came from Colby to one recent group.
"I was very thankful that we had the ability to help her and that's what it's all about. We try to help each other," he said.
Scheuerman said when you have lost someone close to you, often you have a hard time dealing emotionally with that loss.
Everyone's losses are different, and everyone responds differently to those losses. However, when you have the opportunity to visit with someone else who has suffered a similar loss, it's easier to relate to them, Scheuerman said.
"I think when you first lose someone who is close to you, you go into a fog and you have some real serious issues of how to just deal with day to day," he said.
"It could be losing a child, a parent, a spouse or brother, sister or grandparent. It can cause those kinds of issues because those are people you relied on physically, mentally and spiritually. You don't have the people to turn to you used to."
Scheuerman found that help in the groups himself.
"Today's society says after three days you are supposed to be over it," he said. "You lost your child. You've lost your parents. You've lost your spouse. They give you three days leave because of your loss. You come back from the funeral and you're supposed to be over it.
"It doesn't work that way. You never get over it. You learn to accept and deal with it, but you never get over it."
Scheuerman continues to participate in both Healing After Loss and Healing Hearts.
"I feel I learn something every time I attend a meeting," he said. "I hope that I help provide some kind of hope to some other member of that group. I want to give back what was given to me."
Doreen Timken, who also lost a child and a spouse, said the first thing you lose when someone you love dies is hope. Timken also has been a long-time member of Healing Hearts and Healing After Loss.
Timken, 30 years after losing her 19-year-old daughter to cancer, still is deeply saddened by a song or seeing mothers Christmas shopping with their daughters.
"My hope has been rebuilding my life to honor her," Timken said. ... "In honoring her, I couldn't be weak. I had to be strong."
Years later, after coming to Healing Hearts, she realized that she hadn't dealt with her daughter's death.
She lost her husband in 2007.
"I lost half my family. It was just my son and me. You are losing the whole core of your family," she said, "and you think you're the only one experiencing it until you come to a group like this."
Everyone is affected by death, Timken said, but if you have resources, it's a lot better.
"You can try to understand, but unless you have had that gut pain and come out of it, you really don't understand," Timken said.
A long-time member of he HALOS group said losing a loved one to suicide is different than other types of grief. She wished to not be identified.
Guilt can last for years. Some of the people she met when the group began in 2009 had lost loved ones to suicide years before and never talked about it because of the shame and stigma associated with the death.
The loved ones were able to tell their stories without being judged.
"To me that gave me hope that I might survive this because I didn't think I would," she said.
She said she had suicidal thoughts after her son died by suicide.
"It becomes like family — the people in the group. You form friendships with other people, and they are very lasting," she said.
She acknowledged it's hard to make that initial step to come to your first support group, but she said she knew she needed to more help.
The Center for Life Experience is one of the few places in northwest Kansas that provides grief support groups.
Anyone interested in donating to the Center For Life Experience can do so online on the group's website www.cflehope.org or on the group's Facebook page.
Checks can be sent to the CFLE, 203 C. E. 27th, Hays, KS 67601.
You can reach Scheuerman for more information on the groups by calling 785-259-6859.