The Compassionate Friends Conference to be held in Oklahoma City

By Peggy Laizure

Transcript Features Editor

There is nothing worse in the world than losing one’s child. The shock, the grief, the loss, the unfairness and the sudden realization that you have the “plague,” makes this the hardest time you will have in your life. Plague, because no one knows what to say or do so they do nothing. Friends you have had for years now avoid you.

There is a place you can turn, The Compassionate Friends. The Compassionate Friends was founded by The Rev. Canon Stephen Simon in England in 1969. A chapter opened in the United States in 1972. Now there are nearly 600 chapters, in all 50 states and nearly 30 countries. There are eight Oklahoma chapters.

There are no fees or dues to join The Compassionate Friends because members “have already paid the ultimate price with the death of their loved one,” members say. The organization is a national non-profit, self-help support organization offering friendship, understanding and hope to families grieving the death of a child of any age, from any cause. Its mission is to assist families toward a positive resolution. Great emphasis is placed on siblings, who many times get forgotten in the loss of a child. All chapters have a library with inspiring and self-help books, many other books, audio and video tapes, CDs and DVDs. Someone to listen is always available to those who need them.

“We are the only organization known to deal specifically with the death of a child or sibling regardless of age or cause of death,” members said.

The butterfly is the symbol of The Compassionate Friends. A speaker at a conference in 1978 said he saws butterflies on the wall of the children’s dormitories in concentration camps in Germany. The speaker said she felt butterflies felt signified the children’s awareness of ongoing life.

The Norman chapter meets 7:30 p.m. the third Tuesday of the month, at the community services building, Main St. and 12th Ave. SE. For more information call 360-4287, write P.O. Box 23, Norman, OK 73070 or e-mail thecompassionatefriends@hotmail.com.

The Compassionate Friends has a candlelighting ceremony for their loved ones in December and has a national conference every year. The candlelighting is world-wide so that every hour candles are light for the lost children.

This year, the Oklahoma chapters are sponsoring the 30th national conference, “Trails to Tears to Healing Hearts” in Oklahoma City, July 20-22. Speakers will be Elizabeth Edwards, Simon Stephens, Bill Hancock and Bud Welch.

Edwards, is a bereaved parent, lawyer and wife of presidential candidate John Edwards. Stephens is a chaplain in the British Royal Navy. Hancock, bereaved parent and author, lost a son in an airplane crash along with members and staff from the Oklahoma State University men’s basketball team. And Welch lost his daughter, Julie, in the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.

The conference will feature friendship, understanding and hope; a complete sibling program; a special Native American program; and the 8th annual Walk to Remember. Also available will be a bookstore, Butterfly Boutique, 8 by 10 photos or mementos for memory boards, reflection room and sharing sessions.

The Walk to Remember is a 2-mile walk beginning and ending at Cox Convention Center. Walkers do not have to attend the conference to participate. It begins 8 a.m., with a registration fee of $15 before June 15 and $20 after.

Since the organization is non-profit and does not charge dues, sponsorships are needed to help pay for the conference hotel banquet rooms and facilities and the speakers. Sponsorships are anything from $10 for dream catchers to $5,000. In kind donations are also needed. Plants, trees and flowers to decorate the banquets rooms, thank you cards, raffle prizes, printing, pens, t-shirts, fast food coupons, single use cameras, bottled water, highlighters, scrap booking supplies and many other items are needed.

The dream catchers will feature the chapter’s children and will be used to decorate registration area, memory boards and hospitality rooms. For more information go to www.compassionatefriends.

org.

Volunteer also are needed to man registration table, sharing session facilities, hospitality hosts, workshop monitors and other miscellaneous duties. To donate or volunteer, contact Gudron Tendall at goody73501@aol.com or Gary Clark at gary.clark@cox.net.

The Compassionate Friends are sponsoring a golf tournament, May 19 at Trosper Golf Club, 2301 SE 29th St., Oklahoma City. The tournament begins at 12 p.m. with an 11 a.m. check-in. It will be a four-person scramble, with teams of the players choosing. Fees are $65 per player or $260 per team. A putting contest is $5. Mulligans are $5 each or five for $20 with a limit of five per team. It is $100 to sponsor a hole. Deadline to register is May 10.

The 2007 Norman chapter leader is Jodie McWilliams. She came to The Compassionate Friends after the loss of her daughter, Kellie Lynn.

“If it wasn’t for this group, I might have committed suicide,” McWilliams said. “This is every parents’ worst nightmare. The loss of a child, leaves a hole in your heart that you can never replace.”

Kellie died June 28, 2003, when her liver failed after an accidental overdose of Tylenol. One minute she was a happy 17 year old, involved in many activities at Westmoore, cross country and track, the Hands Club and many volunteer programs. She loved sea turtles and dreamed of working at a Sea World. She wanted to be a history teacher, maybe teaching deaf students.

She had lived most of her life in Georgia and Rhode Island moving to Moore her sophomore year. She was a friendly, compassionate, independent person, according to her many friends. She liked to hang out with her friends, was very protective of them and always willing to help. Kellie-do was her nickname because everyone was always asking Kellie-do this or Kellie-do that.

June 23, 2003, Kellie had a migraine. She chose not to take her migraine medication because she didn’t like the “out of control” feeling it gave her. She took some 500 milligram Tylenol. When the pain didn’t stop, she took some more. She started vomiting and thinking she was vomiting the Tylenol out of her system, she took some more. Twenty Tylenols later, she was very ill and her mother took her to Southwest Medical Center. Kellie lost a whole day there before she was transferred to the Integris Baptist Health Center intensive care unit. She spent a day and a half as the number one person on the liver transplant list but died before she could receive a new liver.

“People don’t realize it’s not an easy way to go,” said Jodie McWilliams. “My daughter was not a cryer, not even when she got shots as a baby.”

McWilliams said by the time you can get your stomach pumped, the drug is already in your bloodstream. There are no symptoms when livers start to fail, she said, and once it happens there is nothing you can do.

McWilliams now spends her time writing letters and making phone calls to the FDA, political leaders and those in the medical field to have clearer regulations on labels and provide awareness of the dangers to the public.

“If I can save one girl’s life with Kellie’s story, that’s all I want to do,” said McWilliams. “Tylenol has an antidote. Heroin doesn’t. Just how safe is Tylenol?”

There has been an overwhelming rise in acetaminophen (Tylenol) overdoses, mostly in teenagers. The recommended dosage is two pills every 4 to 6 hours not to exceed eight in 24 hours. Overdoses can cause jaundice and vomiting. An antidote and recovery is possible if it is delivered within 18 hours.

According to the Oklahoma Poison Control Center, the top five causes of Oklahoma poisonings in 2000 were cosmetics, household cleaning supplies, analgesics, pesticides and snake bites and bee stings. Analgesics rank third in pediatric poisoning but has moved to number one in adult exposures.

Acetaminophen is in hundreds of different types of medicines and people may take extra doses without realizing it. A teenage girl might take Midol for cramps which contains acetaminophen and then take Tylenol for a headache, not realizing she has doubled the acetaminophen dosage.

McWilliams is also trying to make people aware of the importance of organ transplants.

“A liver can regenerate itself so an older person’s liver can work well in the body of a young person,” she said. “Even if you are 90, you can donate a liver that could have saved my daughter’s life.”

Organs that are eligible for transplant are the heart, kidneys, pancreas, lungs, liver and intestines. Tissue, such as corneas, skin, bone marrow, heart valves and connective tissue can also be transplanted.