By Mark McCoubrey, Vitals contributor
Laura Casey of Alameda, Calif., understands grief perhaps more than she would otherwise hope to, having had to deal with the loss of both her mother and her sister within a three-year span.
Laura’s relationship with her mom was especially close as she aged, calling her almost every day and seeing her most weekends.
“Mom had a long history of physical problems,” Laura adds. “Her kidneys failed years ago, and she got a donor from a family friend, which helped her live another eight years.”
She also had breast cancer, diverticulitis, organ failure and her kidneys eventually began to fail again. “After one of the many surgeries she had, the doctors said it was probably prudent that we stop the lifesaving treatments.”
On Feb. 22, 2020, Laura’s mother, Sandy Casey, passed away at the age of 77.
Laura knew she needed some support to help her get through the experience and decided to seek out recommendations for grief therapy on a local Facebook group. One of the women in the group told Laura about Sutter Care at Home’s bereavement services. Free of charge to anyone in the community, 80% of bereavement services are funded through philanthropic gifts.
The bereavement counseling gave Laura a better understanding of her grief and helped her accept it.
“Grief is sort of the byproduct of love,” Laura says. “When someone you love dies there’s going to be a lot of grief, and to have the tools to understand the waves of anger and sadness is vital not only for your first great loss, but for other losses of family and friends.”
Feeling grateful for the support from Sutter Care at Home, Laura started a tradition of donating to the SCAH bereavement services each time she recommended them to someone else.
“I ended up getting paired with Stacia (Biltekoff) as my grief counselor,” she says. “I think we’re allowed 16 sessions and I only needed about 13 or 14 because she was so helpful.
“Once she had me write a letter to my mom to talk to her about my guilt, and then she had me write a letter back to myself from my mom. You’re a lot more forgiving to yourself when you write in a loved one’s voice. So that was very helpful.”
Almost a year to the day after her mom passed away, Laura’s sister, Kim, was diagnosed with stage four colorectal cancer at the age of 46. A mother of three children who are now ages 21, 24 and 32, Kim tried everything her doctors recommended to beat the cancer.
“She had rounds and rounds of chemotherapy and radiation,” Laura says. “Every time she just got sicker and sicker from the effects of the treatments.”
Living in Florida, all she wanted to do was go to the beach. But Kim was so sick from treatment she couldn’t make it. Fortunately, Kim was eligible for a miracle treatment that was originally for lung cancer, which put her in remission for a short time. Feeling stable and even able to drive again, Kim and Laura made it to the beach together in April 2023.
“It was really wonderful,” Laura recalls. “We got massages, went on some lazy rivers and she talked a lot about having our family get together for a vacation. We made all these plans because we thought that the effects of this miracle drug would last.”
Unfortunately, the treatment only gave Kim a few weeks of relief before the sickness returned. On June 23, 2023, Kim passed away at the young age of 48.
A few months following her sister’s death, Laura got connected with Zach Woodard, another grief counselor at Sutter Care at Home to talk through the pain of the experience.
“Not only did I need to get rid of the emotional feelings toward the medical treatments, but I also was very angry,” admits Laura. “Dealing with cancer was particularly painful and terrible for my sister. It was really hard on all of us.”
Grief counseling helped Laura process as well as improve family relationships and other emotional challenges brought on by two deaths so close together.
“Both Zach and Stacia were just great,” Laura says.
Continuing her tradition of donating to Sutter Care at Home in gratitude for receiving help when she needed it, Laura made the compassionate decision to leave a sizeable bequest to the Sutter Care at Home bereavement services in her estate plan.
“It’s important to me to donate because I think that everybody should have access to the kind of wonderful counseling services that I received after the death of a loved one,” says Laura. “The loss of a family member or a loved one is devastating, and there are people in our community who need that help but can’t afford it. I know this gift will help many in the community.”
To learn more about Sutter Care at Home’s bereavement services and what you can do to support the program, please call Rena’ Mathews, senior philanthropy officer at Sutter Care at Home, at (916) 291-1478 or email at Rena.Mathews@sutterhealth.org. If you would like to make a donation to the bereavement services at Sutter Care at Home, please visit https://www.sutterhealth.org/scah/giving.
For more information on the grief therapy offered through Sutter Care at Home, go to www.sutterhealth.org/services/home-health-hospice/grief-bereavement-support.
