OSHKOSH (NBC 26) — A new Fox Valley chapter for The Compassionate Friends hosts its first meeting in April, offering a support group for parents who have lost a child.
- The Compassionate Friends is a national organization that connects grieving parents.
- Linda Jones-Blau wanted to start an Oshkosh chapter after her adult daughter died.
- The group is meant to give parents hope and support among families who can relate.
Throughout Linda Jones-Blau’s house are memories of her daughter Ashley.
“Everybody who knew Ashley loved Ashley,” Jones-Blau says. “She was a friend to everybody.”
Ashley died six years ago from a heart attack.
“The pain never goes away, but being with other people who support you, it’s really very helpful,” Jones-Blau says.
She found support online through The Compassionate Friends, a national organization that connects parents who have lost a child.
“The only ones who can truly understand it is another parent,” Jones-Blau says.
TCF has local chapters across the country. The group is meant for parents who have lost a child at any age, from a miscarriage to adulthood.
The closest TCF chapter to Oshkosh has been Green Bay.
“I just thought, well why can’t I start a chapter in Oshkosh?” Jones-Blau says.
Now, Jones-Blau is preparing to host the first Fox Valley TCF meeting on Thursday, April 17 at 6 p.m.
The meetings will take place every third Thursday of the month at Father Carr’s in Oshkosh.
“Be a place to talk and share and comfort each other,” she says.
Jones-Blau says she was inspired by Ashley, who was a special education teacher.
“I think maybe for me in some ways this is a little bit of a way to carry on her legacy as well,” she says. “It helps me, but it’s also helping other people, and that’s truly what I know she would want me to do.”
Four other parents have joined her committee to help start the chapter, including Michael Drexler.
“It’s unnatural to lose a child,” he says. “It’s a hole that can never be filled, so you need something other than just a regular grief group meeting.”
Drexler’s son, Nicholas, died from a drug overdose less than two years ago.
“We always had that bond, even when he became an adult,” Drexler says. “He was a very sensitive soul, and he really loved people, and he believed in love, and he believed that it was the greatest power in the universe.”
Drexler says TCF will give parents like him hope.
“Groups like this can say okay, your life isn’t over now just because you lost a child, there is life after that,” he says.
