A Walk to Remember

On Saturday, hundreds of people will gather at Center Spring Park in Manchester to remember and honor those who have gone before them.

The East of the River CT Chapter of The Compassionate Friends will be holding at 2.5 mile Walk to Remember for bereaved parents, siblings, relatives, and friends of those who have passed.

Registration for the walk is at 10 a.m. and the walk will begin at 11 a.m. Pre-registration online is encouraged at the East of the River CT Chapter of The Compassionate Friends web site.

In addition to the walk, there will be a cookout, pot luck picnic, light entertainment, a remembrance ceremony, and a butterfly release.

There is no cost to walk, but participants are urged to seek pledges that will go to the local chapter to support outreach and chapter activities and to make donations to the chapter team.

Walkers will receive a “walk bib” to record the names of those being remembered, as well as  have the opportunity to pre-order special Compassionate Friends walk T-shirts, which can include their loved ones photo if they wish. “Memory Boards” will be available to post photos of loved ones on during the event.

As the world’s largest self-help bereavement organization, The Compassionate Friends is a free peer-to-peer support group offering friendship, understanding, and hope to families who have experienced the death of a child, of any age from pre-birth to full maturity, from any cause.

There are more than 625 chapters in the United States and each year on the final day of the National The Compassionate Friends Conference, the Walk to Remember is held. Dozens of chapters across the country will join in concurrent walks throughout the month of July.

This year, Connecticut will hold the first ever statewide Walk to Remember, hosted by the East of The River CT Chapter located in Manchester.

“We aren’t walking the state,” clarifies chapter leader Bettie-Jeanne Rivard-Darby, whose own daughter, RobynApril, was killed in a tragic accident 2.5 years ago and is the reason she founded the East of the River Chapter last fall. “We are asking everyone in the state who has lost a child, a sibling, a grandchild, or that close type of relationship, to walk with us. It isn’t just our local chapter participating but all of the chapters in Connecticut, coming together in support and healing.”

RobynApril Rivard-Darby Maguire, an Ellington High School graduate, was killed on Dec. 4, 2008 at her home in Vernon. She was 28 years old.

Rivard-Darby said that since her daughter's death, The Compassionate Friends has been really important to her.

“As part of the TCF “family” I am understood,” she said. “It is a place where I can cry and people don't shy away or become uncomfortable. I get to say her name and no one clams up or recoils. I get to bring her with me, let her walk next to me, let her be real in my life for that couple of hours and everyone “gets that” and welcomes her at the walk, at our meetings. If I laugh, others “get that” too. Everyone gets the incredibly wide range of crazy emotions that come with having a child die.” 

She continued, “Because of TCF I know that I am not going insane.  What I am feeling is to be expected. Not liked, not wanted, but “normal” for having a child die. If I didn't have the understanding, care, compassion of the others who I have met because of TCF I think that I would feel so totally isolated. I think that I might have given up and ended my own life. But I am now connected to these other people in our chapter, and on a much bigger scale through the relationships I have met through The Compassionate Friends and know that if I were to end my life that it would harm all of them too. We are all connected now. We help each other. And we are not alone.”

Rivard-Darby said that last year, she and her husband Jim had the opportunity to attend their first National The Compassionate Friends Conference and it had a huge impact.

“Then, only 17 months into our grief, I don’t have words to share how amazing it felt to be surrounded by 1,500 other bereaved family members who ‘just got it,’” she said. “I think that I was able to keep taking those baby steps (that I still force myself to do each day) because of the catharsis felt from the support and compassion of those others, from the workshops, from the new relationships formed, from the final day Walk to Remember. Being among others at the National Conference is like a warm fuzzy blanket on a frigid winter's night.”

She said that since the 2011 Conference and National Walk To Remember are so far away this year – Minnesota – it was decided to bring the experience to share with the TCF Family in Connecticut.

Families and friends from all nine Connecticut TCF Chapters are encouraged to attend the Walk to Remember for a day of remembrance, community and caring.

Rivard-Darby says that you don’t need to be a member of The Compassionate Friends to join the walk and that you don’t need to walk the full 2.5 miles.

Anyone interested in walking or finding more out about the event can click here to find information or can call Walk Chairperson Gayle Clark at 860-454-4809. 

The TCF East Of The River CT Chapter meets the third Thursday of every month at 6:30 p.m. at the Hilton Inn & Suites on Pleasant Valley Rd in Manchester. For more information, call Rivard-Darby at 860-870-7581 or visit the web site. For information about the national organization and other chapter locations, call toll-free 877-969-0010 or visit TCF’s national web site at CompassionateFriends.org. The Compassionate Friends has a presence in at least 30 countries worldwide.