When running an open group such as ours, people come and go. Some people join us often for months on end, while others come only once or twice. People join us when estrangement is new, and their grief is raw, their days chaotic. They also join us when they’re well into radical acceptance, coping better than they could have imagined.
In our setting, you are not alone, and you will be heard.
I do my best to accommodate people and understand that everyone’s needs are likely to differ. I meet estranged parents who wouldn’t dream of attending a peer support group, and given that each person’s grief is their own, I can understand. We certainly have an “unsubscribe” button at the end of our newsletters, and whether people use it because PLACE is not a fit or because their healing has progressed, I don’t give it much thought.
Someone wrote to me in November of 2024 and asked to be manually removed from the list. I won’t share this person’s name, of course, but I can tell you that it was #18 on our mailing list. This was a person who was on the ground floor of what we have built together.
Their note was one of hope and encouragement, and it went on to explain that they’ve reunited with the estranged children and have been undergoing the process of mending the relationship. This person attending many meetings after that process had begun, and even launched an initiative in their church to help other estranged parents.
Their request to be removed was borne of good news, and I was struck by how infrequently this has happened since PLACE began. I found myself wondering what it must be like to be entry #18 and to no longer be in need of peer support. If I had to use a word to describe it, I might use “bittersweet.” I’m happy for our founding member, though I wish such requests were more frequent.
Wouldn’t it be something if every numerical entry on the mailing list would someday be blank because of such circumstances? It really would.
