Like many married couples, Ruth and Joe Baum planned on traveling and growing old together once they retired.
But when he died unexpectedly last August, she stopped looking forward to the future. He wasn’t there to do the things they’d planned. And the thought of traveling no longer seemed thrilling, or even interesting.
It also became difficult socializing with married friends, coming home to an empty house and completing certain tasks that she and her husband would do together, such as grocery shopping.
“I really didn’t know how to get on with my life real well,” said Baum, 67, of Morton Grove, a quality control and safety manager for a company that provides lunches to Chicago schools. “I missed him terribly.”
Three months ago, she began seeking help through the Widowed Support Group, one of several bereavement programs offered by Rainbow Hospice Inc., Park Ridge.
Rainbow Hospice provides supportive service such as pain and symptom management, and spiritual and psycho-social care for the terminally ill and their families. It is non-profit and relies on support mainly from donations and fund-raisers.
The support group meets every second and fourth Tuesday from 7:30 to 9 p.m. at Rainbow Hospice, 1550 N. Northwest Highway. There is no fee, and meetings are open to the public.
The meetings, which are moderated by trained professionals, offer coping skills and help show the bereaved that their grief and their emotions are common, normal and expected.
“A lot of it is the search for redefinition of self and moving from that relationship of presence-when someone was physically present-to that relationship of memory,” said Barbe Creagh, director of psycho-social services at Rainbow Hospice.
The meetings also give people a chance to build new friendships and seek advice on matters they ordinarily would have consulted their spouse on, such as buying a new car or house, and how to relate to adult children and other family members.
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“You’re so used to turning to (your spouse) and saying `What do you think?’ and now there’s nobody there. You have to learn to make the decisions-the big ones and the little ones,” said Maggie McNamara, a widow who now moderates a support group at Rainbow Hospice.
Though she has only been in the program three months, and said she probably won’t know what the program has done for her until she’s gone through it longer, Baum did say it is helping her.
“It’s so nice to be able to talk about it (the loss) with someone who understands and who has been through it,” she said.