There isn’t a roadmap to navigating grief. But Marty and Missie Durapau have found a way forward, even knowing it will never be truly left behind.
The Bayou Gauche couple will be facilitating a support group for those who have suffered the loss of a loved one at Life Fellowship Community Church in Des Allemands. The group will meet each week, starting Sept. 4 and ending Dec. 4, providing a space for people grieving loss to find others who understand the very difficult emotions that come with the process.
They are leading the group through GriefShare, a national program that makes video presentations available featuring grief experts, ministers and counselors offering guidance.
Most importantly, it brings people together with others who understand the difficult times they’re facing.
“For me it’s just telling the story, talking, because it’s a safe place where you have people there that understand what you’re going through,” said Marty. “Just being able to tell the story and talk about it with others who understand what you’re going through – and it all brings you to that understanding that you’re not alone. That’s the biggest part.”
Added Missie, ‘It just helped me to see like okay somebody else has gone through this whether it was six months before me, ten years before me and they’re surviving and they’re thriving.”
Both Marty and Missie have suffered intense tragedy in recent years.
Marty’s first wife Angela passed away unexpectedly in 2020, the result of a heart attack. The two were married for 34 years and raised five children together.
It’s part of how the GriefShare group came together.
“There was a lady in our church who lost her mother and grandmother a week apart,” Marty said. “And she was the one who wanted to bring (GriefShare) here, at our church. She had been to one across the lake, but we didn’t have something like that here. She told me about it and I helped her co-lead it.”
For Missie, tragedy struck on Easter Sunday of 2024 when her son, Mason Kiley, passed away. His death was the result of a golf cart accident in which Kiley fell and struck his head on the concrete.
Both said finding connection – and understanding – with others has helped them push forward.
“It’s something where you don’t even have to speak a word,” Missie said. “Just being with another parent that’s lost a child, you can just look into each other’s eyes and there’s an automatic connection. And you don’t worry about saying the right thing or the wrong thing.
“You form a lifelong connection. You know if you’re having a bad day, and you feel like you’re going crazy, you can reach out and you have someone that will reach into that pit I’m in and pull me up. There’s no judgement, no fake mask that you have to put on … you don’t have to pretend you’re ok if you’re not.”
Missie said that though the program begins on Sept. 4, people are welcome to join anytime during its duration.
“It’s OK if you miss the first couple of weeks, you can still come join,” Durapau said. “Most people do talk and share their story, but there’s no pressure to speak up if you don’t want to. If you just want to listen, that’s fine too.”
Marty called grieving a dynamic situation.
“There is no fix. There is no cure for it,” he said. “But you can learn how to carry it. They say you never move on from grief, you just learn to move forward with it.”
And, he said, there will always be good days and bad days, and that for their family, faith is a driving force as well in pushing through.
“It’s something I wanted to teach my daughters, affirm that everything my wife and I taught them about believing in God, trusting him and seeking after him … we may not be happy about what happened. We might be angry – and I would tell Him, I’m angry. I didn’t understand why she was taken so soon. But in that process, He showed me to be thankful for what we did have. And we did have a good life together. We raised five beautiful children and we had a long time together,” Marty said. “That was a turning point for me in my healing process.”
Missie said the concept of turning pain into purpose has been helpful for her since the loss of Mason.
“Marty and I pray and ask God to use our pain to bring others hope and healing,” Missie said.
Though the GriefShare program has been established at the church for a few years now, a brand new addition is set to debut. Kimberly Burke will lead a Kid Talk group that will meet at the same time as the adult grief support group, aimed at helping young grievers deal with loss.
“I lost my Mom in 2021 and we were super close,” Burke said. “She was my best friend.”
That inspired Burke, who wanted to help her four children learn to process grief but thought opening it to the community would create a chance to help even more.
“I learned is that whenever a child goes through a situation that causes them grief, when they get older and get into adulthood, they’ll do what’s called recycling grief if they don’t really work through that when they’re young,” Burke said. “They’re going to recycle that and it’s going to be even harder for them to work through as an adult.”
