TERRE HAUTE — Even though her son had committed suicide more than a decade earlier, Meri Kay Hoopingarner continued to grieve.
“I had a really, really hard time,” said the 57-year-old West Terre Haute resident. “There’s nothing worse than losing a child.”
Then, in 2010, she started attending a group founded by Monica Shipley called “Mothers with Broken Hearts,” a support group for women who have lost a son or daughter.
It made all the difference for Hoopingarner. “We all told our stories. … There was a lot of crying,” she recalled. “It was like a release of something we’d held in so long. A lot of people don’t understand if it hasn’t happened to them.”
She and Shipley shared a special bond in that both lost sons to suicide.
Shipley, who started the Terre Haute group in August 2010, says it meets at 6:30 p.m. the first and third Thursday of each month at Joan & Yogi’s One Stop, 6638 Indiana 63 South.
Joan and Yogi’s is in southern Vigo County, about 21/2 miles south of the Federal Correctional Complex.
Mothers with Broken Hearts has a sign in front of the store, where mothers or anyone else can write the names of children who have died. “I leave a marker out there,” Shipley said.
The organization also has three chapters in Ohio, where Shipley used to live.
“We’ve done a lot of healing,” Shipley said last week. The support group is open to any mother who has a lost a child.
Starting Mothers with Broken Hearts has helped Shipley heal and focus on the needs of others, she said.
She has a small group of “regulars,” including Hoopingarner, who attend meetings to help the other mothers. “They are anchored to my heart,” Shipley said. “I think they’ll come until the end of time because they believe in the program so much.”
Having a support group isn’t something she can do by herself, she said. “When you put mothers together who have suffered severe loss, they unite,” she said.
Shipley has written a book about her personal experience losing her son, Jeff, called “Mothers with Broken Hearts, God’s Miracle.” Jeff was 33 when he died in July 2004.
She wrote the book “so I can touch every mother who has ever lost a child and they can communicate with me,” she said.
She’d like to see chapters of the group started in other communities. “I’d like to see it go nationwide,” she said.
Shipley will attend booksignings at the Open Door in Terre Haute from noon to 5 p.m. March 31, and from noon to 5 p.m. April 14 at the Barnes and Noble university bookstore. The softcover book sells for $12.95.
Part of the proceeds will go to Jeff’s two children and part to the support group.
Those interested in purchasing the self-published book can contact Shipley at (740) 572-7830 or go online at www.iuniverse.com. Shipley also has a website, www.motherswithbrokenhearts.com
The group also plans to publish a monthly newsletter.
Sue Loughlin can be reached at (812) 231-4235 or sue.loughlin@ tribstar.com.
