News

Frederick woman seeks to revolutionize grief care

Nancy Lavin

04/02/2015

April 02--Like many a revolutionary, Denise Rollins has a dream.

"Actually, it's more of an ideal place," she said.

That place is a store, complete with soothing music and nice smells. It sells items that people can buy to help themselves, or friends, feel better. In the store are a host of therapists and counselors available for customers to seek support.

The store might be in a mall or a shopping center, as long as it's centrally located.

"It's in the midst of all the bustling of life, not off to the side, and I can go there without shame," Rollins said.

Rollins hopes to make this vision a reality through her grief counseling services and programs at Whole Heart, where she serves as executive director and president.

"My mantra is that I want to revolutionize the grief care industry," she explained. "Grief is one of those things we just don't talk about it. It's like AA. But I want it to be topic we talk about freely, that we get help for freely."

Rollins herself is well-acquainted with grief. Her mother was killed in 1995 by a drunken driver. In 2005, she lost her 5-month-old son, who succumbed to heatstroke after her husband accidentally left the infant in a parked car on a hot day. Just four years later, in 2009, her husband died from complications related to sickle cell anemia, leaving her the single mother of three boys.

"I remember I was so angry," she recalled. "People never seemed to know what to do or say, and I was mad at them. I wish someone would have told me, 'people can't read your mind.'"

From this tragedy, Rollins emerged resolute to help others navigate the sea of emotions she struggled with. She earned a master's degree in thanatology, the study of death and dying, from Hood College, along with a certificate in grief coaching. She wrote a book, "2Grieve 2Gether: A Journal From the Heart," detailing her journey toward healing.

She's currently enrolled in a Ph.D. program for marriage and family therapy at Eastern University in Pennsylvania, along with running support services at husband Gary Rollins' funeral home and at Whole Heart.

From Whole Heart's single-room office in the Westview Village office suites, Rollins and her staff of grief coaches -- she doesn't call them counselors because "not everyone is open to the idea of counseling" -- see up to 10 clients per week in one-on-one appointments. The organization also offers to group-style support sessions, a drop-in version at Jackson Chapel United Methodist Church and an eight-week enrolled program at the office.

Her clients range from those who have recently experienced the loss of a loved one, to others seeking help for a past trauma. Some may come for a single visit. Others benefit from regular appointments for several months, and may continue occasional contact well after that.

Rob Dixon first sought out Rollins after his fiancee died from a heart attack at the age of 38. The devastating loss of his 19-year sweetheart and mother of his three children led him to the group at the church, and later to individual appointments with Rollins.

More than a year later, he's still in contact with her for "the moments when I just feel like I need some professional advice."

His recovery is ongoing, but Dixon credited much of his progress to what Rollins' programs taught him.

"I know I wouldn't have been in healthy in management of my grief if I had not had Denise," he said. "What she provides is not just a shoulder to cry on, but knowledge that you can arm yourself with."

This knowledge includes coping mechanisms, resources for support and the understanding that grief manifests in different ways, for different people.

Described by Dixon as a "warehouse of information," Rollins also recently began a new way to share her knowledge in the form a monthly seminar series that will continue through the end of the year. Topics range from creating a legacy to the intersection of grief and faith and targeted support for different demographics coping with grief, like mothers, fathers and children.

Rollins described the seminars as not only an opportunity to share similar coping strategies and support, but to impart something she has come to learn more recently though her patients.

"We don't realize that a lot of what we go through is grief," she explained.

Ending a relationship, changing jobs or even moving can create a sense of loss. Recognizing a lesser-known cause of grief can prove crucial to recovery, healing and overall happiness, according to Rollins, who named her decision to leave her job with State Farm Insurance to pursue a career in grief counseling as one such example.

"After I left, I was grieving the loss of that role I had for 23 years, the friends I made," she said. "Any change can cause grief, which can in turn magnify any other problems or tensions that might be going on."

For Dixon, who works as a financial representative, recognizing the sources of grief for his clients has helped him become better at his job.

"A lot of the people I deal with are grieving because of losing a job, or missing a promotion," he explained. "That disappointment, it causes grief, and that cycle affects our positive thinking."

The seminars also further Rollins' mission of encouraging open discussion around grief. The next scheduled seminar, for example, promotes discussing the details of after-death arrangements with family members, along with the type of legacy a person wants to leave behind.

"We need to have those conversations that are really important between loved ones before it's too late," she said. "We plan everything else in life: birthday parties, weddings. Why not this?"

Like many other topics within the larger subject of grief, Rollins can relate this to her own circumstances, remembering how the lack of arrangements after her mother died made her loss all the more devastating.

But drawing upon even the most painful of memories is how she will continue to accomplish her mission.

Recalling words once spoken to her by a counselor at the grief camp her children attended, she explained, "Whenever I tell my story, I heal. Whenever I help someone else with their story, I heal even more."

Follow Nancy Lavin on Twitter: @Nancy_Lavin228.