Where do you go when your heart is broken and seemingly shattered beyond repair?  Where do you obtain the help needed to see that tomorrow will be a better day? How do you stop crying and hurting from the loneness that is louder than anything you could ever imagine?  How do you hug a picture that follows you around the room or touch a hand that is not there?  Where do you go to share both your good news and that whimsical thought that only Helen would smile and understand. How do you keep your faith when even Psalms 23 now hurts to remember?  For months I struggle with those questions and more.  Jayneen you reminded me each session that God will comfort me.  There was never a session that ended when I was not uplifted and encouraged. You allowed me to talk endlessly until I found my answers in your encouragement.  Literally, I could feel Helen’s presence in the midst of your encouraging words because that was her nature too. 
Although I knew the inevitable outcome of Helen’s health months before, I was still not prepared for Her transition.  John Donne’s sonnet -- “Death, be not proud” -- resonated constantly in my mind afterward.  The tunnel I seem to be in was dark and endless.  With your counseling (i.e. your Ministry), I was able to see a glimmer of light.  The more I took my focus off my loss and saw my blessings, the less painful my hurt. 
I knew that God had prepared me for this day and now I had to trust that He has already prepared me for the new life without Helen.  I came to realize that now Psalm 23 had a more expansive meaning.  The words “… Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…” that Helen I recited every night before going to bed was not just for her but for me now. 
You reminded and encouraged my heart to remember God’s promise to comfort those who mourn. You encouraged me to remember that God can use me even as He heals me!  
Jayneen may God Bless you in kind for your ministry of service to those that mourn.  From our very first conversation, I knew God had placed you in my life for such a time as this. Not just any healing but holistic healing that included my spirit. Talking about Helen and my past deacon journey fortified and reminded me that God had prepared me for this journey years ago. Please know that I am doing okay as I journey onward! 
To simply say thank you Jayneen seems so understated and not commensurate with the gratitude I have for your counseling me through my tunnel of darkness.  But wrapped in these words are heartfelt emotions that I know without a doubt, I never would have made it through without your counseling.  As I told you many times during my sessions -- you made a difference for me. You have been instrumental in my healing and helped me reclaim my desire to run on to see what the end will be.    May God continue to bless and keep you !!! 

 

Hi Jayneen —      I want to thank you again for the two individual sessions I had with you, and I found the 6-week group work helpful as well, especially learning the other group members’ stories.     So this is an improved way for me to continue my grief journey.

 

Jayneen, Thank you for welcoming me to the grief support program and facilitating meetings.  From our first conversation, I felt welcome. My experience was all that I could have hoped for.  I ask that you pass these words of thanks to my group leaders.  Thanks to you both for the gift of your guidance through grief.  In the safe environment of our group, I found words for caring for and losing my friend.  Once unafraid to revisit the events, I learned that Thea died when she went into cardiac arrest rather than of a heart attack.  Her passing may have been more peaceful than I'd believed. My joyful task is to live in loving remembrance of our friendship. Thank you for helping me see the path.
 

 

The death of a loved one is a personal, unique, and often time lonely experience that each individual experiences even if you belong to a large extended family network. This grief may start and stop at different times for each individual.  Although these two statements may sound very profound, as a nurse for over 35 years, this truth did not become real to me until my father's recent illness and death and the intervention of Ms. Jayneen Jones.  The word anticipatory grief was a terminology that I had heard of during the early days of my nursing education but not something that I would not have ever applied to myself.  Although Ms. Jones later educated me on the fact that we had previously interacted with each other, my first recollection of her was when I was assigned as her clinical manager, which made her educating me even more difficult.  I remember apologizing for needing to answer a phone call from the nursing home, where my father was being cared for in the middle of my one-to-one monthly conference meeting with Ms. Jones at the end of the call she was supportive and began to educate me on the signs and symptoms of an anticipatory grief that she was observing in me.  I took her advice and leaned on her for more information about the management of grief and my father's decline and death.  One year later on the anniversary of my father's death as if preplanned, I was in a state of paralyzing grief dreading the anniversary of my father's death as if this was his death all over again.  Ms. Jones helped me transition from grief to the celebration of my father's life which is allowing me to move on.  It is my great pleasure to give this testimonial of the excellent work done by Ms. Jones.