Group helps students cope with their grief

Just before first-year Medical student David Fajgenbaum's mother died of brain cancer in October 2004, he promised to do something in her memory.

Three months later, he founded Ailing Mothers and Fathers, a support group for students "coping with the illness or death of a loved one," at Georgetown University, where he was an undergraduate at the time, Fajgenbaum said.

Now AMF - also his mother's initials - is a national non-profit organization with chapters on 24 college and university campuses. Fajgenbaum founded the Penn chapter last month, and it met for the first time Wednesday night.

Laura, a student who preferred her last name not be used, said the group offers "camaraderie." When she sees people she meets through the group on campus, she knows they're experiencing the same things as she.

Although others in the group also expressed feeling alone or even abnormal, Fajgenbaum said that about 35 to 48 percent of college students have had someone they cared about die in the last two years.

"Unfortunately, students don't talk about this stuff with their friends and their peers," he said. "We try to really help students feel connected."

Most of the 13 students at the meeting had never met before, but they said they had only shared much of what they said with close friends before now.

Noemi Spinazzi, also a first-year Med student, said she found students in the group to be an outlet that allowed her to be emotional when talking about her loss.

"People get really uncomfortable when you start crying," she said, so she normally finds it "easier to just not talk about it."

Fajgenbaum recalled making excuses before Parents Weekend at Georgetown.

"Sometimes I just made up something - 'Oh, my mom can't make it this weekend."

In addition to attending weekly support meetings, AMF members can choose to have a faculty mentor through the Angels program. Mentors have lunch with or even just e-mail their students on a regular basis to provide added support.

The group also brings its members together through service, like fundraisers or charity walks to raise money for disease research.

"We did the ALS walk in honor of a student whose father had ALS," he said.

The national group also gave a $10,000 donation from Reader's Digest to the National Hospice Foundation.

The service helps students "do something when you think there is absolutely nothing you could possibly do," said Law student Tiffany Duong.

But in the end, some things will never change.

Laura said her father died after a tractor trailer hit the car that she, her father, her friend and her cousin were in when she was eight.

"When you don't have the person who would be so proud of you there, it's hard," she said, adding that every wedding she goes to, she thinks about how her father won't be walking her down the aisle.

"It sucks. It really sucks," she said. "It's nice that people understand that."

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