Losing a child is a grief most people never have to name, which is part of why Jill Anderson didn’t wait for someone else to build the place she needed. Anderson, a mid-Missouri mother who lost her daughter to an accidental overdose in 2018, spent years carrying that loss largely on her own. This past January, she finally put a question to Facebook: was anyone else out there looking for a community of parents who understood?
More than 50 people answered. That response became Village of Hope Grief Support, a monthly gathering for bereaved parents that has been meeting at the Columbia Public Library since January and has grown a little bigger every month since.
The group is open to any parent who has lost a child, “regardless of cause or circumstances.” There’s no fee to attend — Anderson brings snacks and drinks to every meeting herself — and no agenda beyond giving parents room to talk to people who don’t need the loss explained to them.
“If there was that feeling for me, then there were probably other people out there that probably had that same feeling,” Anderson said of her decision to reach out.
She’s also been direct about why a group built specifically around child loss matters, distinct from broader grief support. “The emotion behind a child loss I feel like is just different,” she said.
Village of Hope isn’t trying to be the only resource in town, either. Parents looking for additional support have several other mid-Missouri options to consider alongside it: Journeys at MU Health Care, GracefulWait, the MISS Foundation, and Living With Grief at Love Columbia.
For now, the way in to Village of Hope is Facebook — the group posts its meeting schedule and updates on its Village of Hope Grief Support page, which is the best place to confirm the next gathering’s exact date and time before heading to the library.
Eight months in, Anderson’s Facebook post has turned into a standing room for parents who needed one. That’s the kind of good news this desk exists to tell — a neighbor building the thing she wished had existed for her, and leaving the door open for anyone else who needs it.
Anderson hosts monthly Village of Hope Grief Support meetings at the Columbia Public Library. Meeting dates and times are available on the support group’s Facebook page.