'Get over it', 'they are in a better place', and 'it's for the best' are just some of the clichés that people are bombarded with when they are grieving a loved one.

Sometimes it feels like only someone who has been through terrible loss can really understand another person's situation.

That is why Friends of Hospice and PALS have come together to offer the community a specially structured grief support group, which follows the teachings of Dr. Alan Wolfelt of the Centre for Loss and Life Transition in Fort Collins, Colorado.

He is the author of 'Handbook of Companioning the Mourning' and 'Understanding Your Grief: Ten Essential Touchstones for Finding Hope and Healing Your Heart'.

The group has just finished one three-month session, and is hoping to start up another group this winter and one group member, who did not wish to be named, said it helped her deal with the grief she felt after her 22-year-old son died unexpectedly, more than a year ago.

It took a red light to tell her that she needed to deal with her grief.

"(After he died) one day I was driving with my friend in the car," she said. "I went through a red light. I was like 'oh my God'. The next light was green, and I was just sitting there in front of it, not moving. People were yelling.

"Then I thought, 'OK, maybe I am not physically alright'."

She said everyone was telling her, or hinting, that she should 'get over it'.

"It was kind of difficult to explain," she said. "I knew people who had died before, but I had never felt grief like that before.

"I think what I have learned from this experience is that you never know how you will be affected by any circumstance until it happens to you."

She said if people wanted to help someone who is grieving they didn't need to jabber on with irritating statements like 'he's in a better place'.

"How can he be in a better place," she said, "the best place for my son was here with me."

She had one-on-one grief counselling, and was later referred to the grief support group after a friend, also grieving, heard about it. "At that time my son had been dead about a year," she said. "I called up."

Although she was the only person in the group grieving for a lost child, she still found solace. "Most people had lost a parent or spouse," she said, "but there were still similarities in how we felt."

The group follows a structured programme and participants keep a journal.

But she said the process was emotionally painful. "We met once every other week," she said. "I used to feel so drained afterward.

"In the book it compares grieving to a journey through the wilderness. You are alone. You don't know where you are going. No one is with you.

"Now I feel like I am still in the wilderness. It is never going to be OK, or get better. I will still be grieving if I live to be a 100.

"But my eyes now have adjusted to the darkness. I am still out there. I miss him terribly, but not to the point where I am dwelling and can't get out of bed and can't eat or sleep."

She said ultimately, the programme helped her to face what happened.

The grief support group is facilitated by Barbara Petty, a volunteer for PALS and a retired clinical social worker, and professional grief counsellor, Karen Dyer.

Friends of Hospice and PALS jointly fund the costs of the counsellor fees and all materials so the group is free of charge to attendees.

Erica Fulton, Operations and Programme Manager for Friends of Hospice, said the group was started after PALS and Agape House workers noticed there was little in the community to help people with long-term grieving.

"We wanted to offer something for people who didn't perhaps want one-on-one counselling but wanted to be in a group situation," she said. "We wanted to provide a place where they could meet other people in the same sort of situation and work through their grief in the structured grief process."

Mrs. Petty said as part of the programme, participants were asked to bring in photographs of their lost loved ones.

"It is so we can all see who that person was," she said. "It makes them very real. This is who we are dealing with. It is about losing that loved one, and how to live following the loss.

"It is about how to deal with family and friends who may be very supportive to you, but can only go with you up to a certain point."

She said sometimes it was necessary for a person to tell their story multiple times, as part of the healing process.

"One of the things they learn is that grief is a lifelong journey," she said. "Some people have the mistaken notion that they will come to the end of it.

"Some people have been told that by professionals. You will be better in a year.

"They learn that they will never get over the grief, but they will learn how to reconcile themselves to living with that loss. That is the aim of the group, also offering a support system."

Mrs. Petty said in the Western world, people often don't like to address issues surrounding death.

"We are a death denying society," she said. "It is not just Bermuda, but Western culture is not good at dealing with death and dying, in general."

She said it had been very moving to work with the group. "I have seen people really work through the grief process," she said. "We have seen healing and growth. That is very fulfilling. It helps me to go back again.

"One of the outcomes of a successful group is that the participants become quite altruistic. They have experienced healing and they grow into having more compassion and empathy and want to help others. That is what I am seeing in this group."

The next group starts in November. It is generally designed for people who have experienced their loss one to three years ago.

"When people are still raw in their bereavement, we find the group setting doesn't work as well," said Miss Fulton.

There is a screening process to make sure the participants are right for the group.

For more information, telephone Friends of Hospice 232-0859 or PALS office 236-7257.

The next group will meet from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. on Thursdays at the PALS office, on Point Finger Road, in Paget.