CNS Bereavement Helps Heal Families
The CNS Bereavement Program helps family members express and cope with their grief after losing a loved one. Team members make phone calls and in-home visits to provide bereavement counseling and connect families to community grief resources such as grief support groups and long-term counseling.
Bereavement team members also mail information to grieving families throughout the year to help them understand the many different ways people grieve and find hope as they begin to heal. Topics include surviving the holidays, understanding normal grief responses, and also honoring those who have passed away while still moving forward in a world where they are no longer physically present.
Additionally, CNS hosts memorial services for grieving families throughout the year. Services often include music, tributes and the opportunity for family members to reconnect with staff they met while their loved ones received hospice care.
“As the days turn into weeks, then stretch into months, bereaved family members sometimes don’t know who else to talk to about the roller coaster of emotions they are experiencing,” says David Leavitt, assistant area manager for hospice at the Salt Lake Branch. “We have the privilege of listening to them as they express anger, fear, agony, heartache, frustration, despair, relief, joy, acceptance, and even numbness. This opportunity to walk beside them and be a grief companion for them in such a tender and difficult time is a true honor.”
“My grief was warranted”: Laurie Boggio’s experience
When Cheyenne Ericson passed away from liver failure at 41 years old in April 2022, her mother, Laurie Boggio, said she was surprised to receive a bereavement pamphlet in the mail the next month, which she recalled was “worded perfectly.”
“How did CNS know that is exactly what I needed to hear? How did they know that I couldn’t handle anything bigger at that point in time?” Laurie asked.
Though the rest of Laurie’s family lives in Utah, she and her husband live in California and felt very disconnected. The CNS Bereavement Program offered the comfort she needed.
“The guides were a connection to this very real and tragic thing that happened. They were validating and made me feel like my grief was warranted,” Laurie said. “I loved the last guide and how it spoke about saying goodbye to your pain. I am going to try to start living. I am not quite there yet, but I am working on it.”