Lorna

Lorna decided to volunteer on our helpline after experiencing significant loss herself. She loves her role helping people.

“I first became a Helpline Volunteer with Cruse back in 2007. I had to take a break for a few years due to work commitments but re-joined the team in 2019.

My mum had died in 2003, and this was quickly followed by the death of two aunts, and I’d found it difficult to cope. I tried hard to find support (even paying for a counselling session with a private practitioner), but my GP’s only offering was antidepressants. I knew it wasn’t what I needed. I just needed someone to talk to, someone to listen.

I started to explore the options, and, although I worked through the challenges of my bereavement without intervention, I recognised that the support services offered by an organisation like Cruse would have been invaluable to me. And so, later, in my desire to play a part in helping people find their way through grief, to know they aren’t alone, that there is help, and that with this help, they can work through their loss, I became involved with Cruse as a Helpline volunteer.

I love my role with Cruse. The calls are not always easy, but they are always rewarding. To be part of a team that affords anyone who has been bereaved the space to say out loud the things that are troubling them, to provide a route to what is often a lifeline via our services, to offer a beacon of hope for the future, is an absolute honour.”