Luke was 20 when his older sister died from an overdose. As he experienced grief at the holidays, Christmas no longer included the Merry Christmas phone calls he once received from her.
“When we lost my sister, we stopped getting the Merry Christmas phone calls,” Luke said.
Kate’s Club is sharing Luke’s story about substance use, overdose loss, grief, and the support that has helped him live with these experiences. He hopes sharing his story will help children, teens, and young adults understand that they do not have to navigate grief alone.
“The pain, all this pain I went through, I want to turn it into something positive,” Luke said.
Remembering His Sister and Understanding His Feelings
Luke’s older sister was about 16 years older than he was. They had not been close, and their relationship had been affected by difficult family dynamics. After her death, he struggled with the feeling that he should have been more upset.
“I feel bad for not feeling worse,” Luke said.
Grief can include difficult emotions such as guilt, especially when a relationship was complicated. Alongside the loss itself, Luke was questioning his own response to it.
His experience of grieving his sister differed from his experience of grieving his brother and parents. In telling his story, he was honest about the distance between him and his sister and the feelings that remained after she died.
How Substance Use Changed Life at Home
Substance use had affected Luke’s family before his sister’s death.
He was 13 when his older brother died by suicide. Afterward, Luke said his father began drinking heavily and spending more time away from the family. He also described his father using drugs during those years.
“He lived at the house, he paid the bills, but he was not there for us,” Luke said.
His father remained in the household, but Luke remembers his mother doing most of the parenting. Luke and his younger sister, who were raised together and are two years apart, grew close while navigating the challenges at home.
Luke later experienced the death of his mother when he was 27 and his father when he was 29. By the time he reached 30, he had lived through several family deaths and years of changes in the relationships around him.
“It was a lot of grief, a lot of pain, all condensed in a very short amount of time,” Luke said.
These experiences are part of why Luke wants other people who are grieving to have somewhere to turn.
Finding Understanding at Kate’s Club
Luke learned about Kate’s Club through his therapist. He had tried grief groups before, but some experiences left him worried about how others would respond to his story.
In an earlier group, reactions to his brother’s death by suicide made him feel singled out. He worried about encountering that response again.
“I was worried coming to Kate’s Club, but that didn’t happen,” Luke said.
Luke has attended a few virtual meetings. One conversation helped him recognize feelings he had not realized he needed to discuss.
Another participant described a friendship changing after a death. Luke had experienced something similar when a close friend stopped talking to him after his mother died.
“I didn’t know it bothered me as much as it did,” Luke said.
Hearing someone else describe that loss of support helped him recognize how much it had affected him. He described talking about it with someone who understood as “really cathartic.”
Those conversations gave Luke a place to discuss parts of grief that reached into his everyday relationships. He has recommended Kate’s Club to others and expressed interest in volunteering when he can.
Sharing his story is another way he hopes to help someone who is grieving feel less alone.
Learning to Live With the Waves
Luke credits both therapy and Kate’s Club with helping him better understand his grief.
He compares his earlier feelings to an ocean in a storm. The waves were huge, and he did not understand everything happening inside him. Over time, he has become more able to recognize his feelings and navigate them.
“Now it’s like, there are a few waves. They come, they go,” Luke said. “But for the most part, you can see the horizon, you can see the sun.”
For Luke, this change means learning how to live with grief as an ongoing part of his life.
“I will never not have it, but I know how to deal with it, how to live with it,” Luke said.
Holidays still bring reminders of the people who are missing, and he is still figuring out what new traditions might look like.
Luke and his younger sister have also started taking more photographs together. They did not have many photographs from growing up, and he wants them to have pictures of the moments they share now.
When asked what he would say to someone considering Kate’s Club, Luke offered encouragement drawn from his own experience of living with loss.
“Just because it won’t be the same doesn’t mean it won’t be good,” Luke said.
Looking for Free Grief Support Near You?
Kate’s Club is a peer-support program, not clinical counseling or individual therapy. Families seeking free grief support and grief resources for a child can turn to Kate’s Club for community-based programs across Georgia.
Kate’s Club creates supportive spaces for children and teens, young adults, and families navigating life after the death of someone important to them. Through recreational activities, guided group conversations, education, and peer connection, participants can express difficult emotions and connect with others who understand grief.
Founded in Metro Atlanta in 2003, Kate’s Club now serves communities throughout Metro Atlanta, Southwest Georgia, Northeast Georgia, and Coastal Georgia.
If you or someone you know is seeking help related to substance use, SAMHSA’s National Helpline provides free, confidential treatment referrals and information.