DOWAGIAC — When Melody Wallace, of Dowagiac, lost her husband, she was shocked at the way it affected every area of her life.

“It really hit me how many variables there are in the grieving process,” Wallace said. “Even now, I come home to an empty home and am sometimes hit by that.”

One thing that helped her get through that time her in life was a grief support group she attended in Benton Harbor.

Now, she wants to bring that same group to Dowagiac.

Wallace and fellow Dowagiac resident Alice Swann plan to bring a Grief Share group, a national non-denominational grief support group, to the area. The support group will meet from 2 to 3:30 p.m. every Monday starting March 19 and ending June 11. Sessions will be held at Dowagiac Seventh-Day Adventist Church, 401 Hill St., Dowagiac. There is a $20 cost to register in the group, which will cover the cost of a Grief Share workbook.

Wallace said both she and Swann were inspired to start the group due to personal losses. Wallace’s was the loss of her husband, and Swann was the loss of her mother.

“Most of us, at some point in our lives, go through the death of a loved one,” Wallace said. “Everybody deals with those losses differently, but everyone wants support. … Because everyone processes things differently, so they might not be able to find the right support in their friend group or family. That’s where a grief support group would be helpful.”

Grief Share is 13-week, video-based program. Each session features a video covering a different topic relating to the grieving process. Supplementing the videos are interviews with experts, including psychologists and counselors. Participants can complete exercises relating to the videos in the provided workbook.

“People are able to share their stories with others and often what happens is they find that what they are going through is not unusual,” Swann said. “When people realize others are going through the same thing, they don’t feel so alone. They don’t feel so helpless. … Someone else might have a different story to tell, but they have shared a similar experience.”

Helping people feel less alone is really the goal of the Grief Share program, Swann said.

The Grief Share program is an open program, so that anyone can start at any time and do not need to attend every meeting. This openness is something both Swann and Wallace said they believe will help them reach others.

“We just want to help people reach out to God and reach out to others,” she said.

Should the first round of Grief Share meetings go well, Wallace and Swann hope to host another session in the fall, saying that it is recommended that people attend more than one session of meetings.

“Grief can go on for years. It’s not something that is a quick fix,” Swann said. “People need continual support. … Especially around the holidays, as they can be quite hard after a loss. I would like to see us hosting a group.”

Whether or not the Grief Share group becomes a permanent fixture at the Dowagiac Seventh Day Adventist Church or not, Swann and Wallace said that they just want to help the people of Dowagiac. The group is the way they think they can do that.

“We just want to be there, supporting people, without judging the journey they may be going through,” Wallace said.

For more information or to join the Grief Share group, contact Wallace at (269) 313-2716.