We started, as a family, a support group program for families, after we lost our son in 1996. It morphed into a family centre and encompasses much of our lives today. After 20 years of leading groups, I've started to make changes to move my heart and my work into new directions. Thankfully, I have wonderful people in my life who have been able to step into the roles I'm slowing releasing. But tonight, we had a bit of a glitch as a weather advisory was issued, just 4 short hours before our monthly support group meeting was supposed to start. Fog so thick you can't see a foot in front of the car. And freezing temps that will make the rain covered roads very slick later tonight. It's never easy to cancel anything but we wanted our families to be safe. So we changed our meeting tonight from meeting on site, in person, to an online experience. A gamble for these grieving families.
But I have to say, our gamble paid off! We had at least 4 times more attendees than we normally would have. And so many of them have commented how nice it was to join in when they can't because they live so far away. Or the weather keeps them home. I think we may have hit on a new idea here. A safe place but online, where families can share their experiences while we guide and moderate the conversations. We'll chat later to see if we should do this more often. Maybe in time we'll let go of the in person group meeting and just click online to connect to each other. Hmmm .... I kind of like this new tool ....
