Care and Share walks healing journey

STITTSVILLE – When Marlene Kocvar moved to Ottawa in the mid-1980s, the 40-ish Montreal native was struggling to come to terms with her husband’s recent passing.

She wondered what was wrong with her. Others who she knew were grieving would tell her they were doing just fine. The irony was, Kocvar believed them.

“But I wasn’t fine at all,” Kocvar told West Carleton Online while recalling those dark days. “I wondered if I was going nuts. Inside I was falling apart and I had no one to talk to. About a year and a half after my husband died, I read in the paper that someone was speaking at the YMCA downtown, and the subject was about how have you moved through your grief. I thought, this is what I need. It was a group called the Widows’ Support Group. At the end of the meeting someone talked me into borrowing one of their books. Since they met once a month that meant a month later, I would be back as I had to return the book.”

Kocvar says joining a bereavement group was life changing.

“I know what a difference a grief support group can make,” she said. “One of the first things I tell people who are going through a loss is how important it is to hear other peoples’ stories, share their experiences, and be supportive of them.”

It wasn’t long before she was drawn to help others as she had been helped.

“When the support group asked for new volunteers I thought, I don’t know anything about this but I can pour coffee” Kocvar said. “One night this great big young man came to the door with his tiny mother who was already in tears not even through the door yet. Her husband had died and he said the kids were beside themselves. The son said to call him if she needed to be picked up early. That lady, two years later, was a volunteer and we led a small group together. What I love about this is watching people, grow, change and build new lives.”

In 2008, Kocvar signed up to volunteer with Friends of Hospice Ottawa which is where she first met Inge Kelly, a retired nurse and palliative care volunteer.

“When I retired in 1996 palliative care was just coming in,” Kelly said as she and Kocvar chatted with West Carleton Online in her apartment last month (April 22). “One day I heard a physician say to a patient with a bowel tumour that he wanted to operate. She said no, I’m 92. I can still see him standing in the doorway saying to her, ‘then there is nothing I can do for you.’ I thought that is so wrong. I thought there has to be a better way, so I joined Sylvia House Hospice, and then when it became Friends of Hospice Ottawa in 2004 I was asked to help out. That was the beginning. I have stayed with it because I get so much out of it.”

Kelly said the idea for a grief walk came about when the Friends of Hospice Ottawa realized they were not offering any help to bereaved families.

“When someone died, the doctors left, the nurses left, the volunteers left and hospital visits ended and suddenly the family went from a houseful of people all the time to being left with no one,” Kelly said. “So, we decided to have a grief walk, in part, because we didn’t have a building.”

The first walk was on June 13, 2009, and Kelly and Kocvar were there to lead the way.

“At first two or three people showed up to walk at Andrew Haydon Park,” Kelly said. “We decided to hold it on Saturday because many people had told me the weekends were the worst. Once word got out, however, it started to grow and had as many as 25 people signed up at any one time.”

With the exception of COVID the monthly walks have continued for the past 17 years as have volunteers Kelly and Kocvar. When Friends of Hospice Ottawa and The May Court Hospice amalgamated in 2013, the walk came under the direction of the new entity Hospice Care Ottawa (HCO).

The walkers meet mid-morning for a stroll followed by refreshments replete with Kelly’s signature touch – a cloth covered picnic table, China cups, hot drinks and a selection of cookies. Conversation is lively and varied and always confidential.

“The new people like to learn from others with more experience,” Kelly said. “The people who have been in the program for a longer time are happy to help people with a recent loss. They confirm there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And every time we get a new client, the ones who are already there immediately open their arms, embrace them, and make them part of the group.”

“It also gives hope there are better days ahead,” Kocvar said. “They tell us the group is invaluable. A woman once told me joining the walking group was the best thing that had happened to her since her husband died.”

The grief walk is now known as the Care and Share Walk because participants thought this name better reflects what the outing offers. There is no agenda. The volunteers are there to listen to whatever comes to mind.

“They talk about everything,” says Kocvar. “They talk about travelling alone. Would you do that? Have you done that? How did it go? Some will talk about being depressed and how lonely they are. They talk about weekends being difficult. But then they talk about the grandkids and something marvelous. And there is always lots of laughing, on occasion tears, but there is always more laughing than crying.”

The walks are free and open to anyone who has lost a loved one to a terminal illness. They are held the second and fourth Saturday of the month at a local park in the summer and at an indoor shopping mall in the winter. There is also a separate HCO Share and Care walk available in east Ottawa. Registration is required either through the HCO website or by contacting HCO Bereavement Coordinator Liam MacDonald.

The HCO is a community-based charitable organization which offers residence and community hospice care as well as bereavement care. In addition to the Care and Share walks other bereavement support includes a weekly drop-in session as well as structured spousal and parent loss groups which are offered twice a year. All of these groups are facilitated by trained volunteers who often have a background in health care in addition to lived experience.

For further information see: hospicecareottawa.ca.