Bereavement

 Hospice Volunteering – it is hope and more…more than traditional healthcare.  It is providing solutions for difficult times when hope is in question.  It is being close in a time of fear.  It is a friend with time to share.  It is laughter in the midst of tears.  It is dignity…it is humanity…It is what Hospice Volunteers do.  It must be love…it is called Hospice. Hospice Volunteer training classes are now forming for men and women 18 years old and up, bilingual appreciated but not required, for Hospice Touch, located in Santa Ana.  We visit patients throughout Orange County, and once training is completed, patient assignments are made near where the volunteer lives.

Suzie Harrison Jewish Family Service of Orange County offers aid to the community and has many resources for mental health, stress, bereavement and other issues that seniors face, said Marcy Middler, the facility's clinical supervisor. In her department, there are four people, all professional social workers and psychologists. Middler specializes in stress management. On Wednesday night, they have a group for women 50 and older. It's a discussion group that addresses issues such as anxiety, depression, relationships, loneliness and family.

Send CALENDAR items to the Daily Pilot, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626; by e-mail to andrew.edwards@latimes .com; by fax to (714) 966-4679; or by calling (714) 966-4617. Include the time, date and location of the event, as well as a contact phone number. ONGOING An Alcoholics Anonymous men's support group meets from 8 to 9:30 p.m. Tuesdays at the Costa Mesa Senior Center, 695 W. 19th St., Costa Mesa. Information: (949) 645-2356. Oasis Senior Center holds a pancake breakfast from 8 to 10 a.m. on the second Saturday of every month.

Deepa Bharath Pamela Wiener and Vickie Bridgman have something in common. They both lost what was most precious to them. Bridgman's 18-year-old son Donny died in a 1997 crash on Irvine Avenue that also seriously injured two other teens. Pamela Wiener's 3-year-old son Brandon was killed after a Steven Allen Abrams plowed into a Costa Mesa preschool in a psychotic rage also killing 4-year-old Sierra Soto. Wiener and Bridgman will join hands to put together a fund-raiser on Friday to help continue a program for children who are grieving the loss of a loved one. Wiener said she started the Brandon Cody Wiener Scholarship Fund last year to keep his memory alive.

Neighbors help neighbors in need. That may be true in Midwestern towns and in American lore, but just an hour south of Los Angeles? For residents of a tight-knit community in Costa Mesa, that maxim came to life one Saturday morning in June. Jeannie Tuxford, a mother of two, had just lost her husband of 20 years to pancreatic cancer. She left her Mesa Verde home and traveled to his hometown near Toronto, where she spread his remains. Tuxford, 50, had left a bare refrigerator, disheveled garden and worn paint on her white picket fence.

Photographs of Lauren Nicole Zussman that line the walls and coffee table of her parents’ Newport Coast home show a smiling young woman with a mane of thick dark hair and large brown eyes. “She was beautiful, but it was what was on the inside that made her beautiful,” Lauren’s mother, Lynda Zussman said. Lauren Nicole Zussman, an international fashion model signed with Ford Modeling Agency, was 26 when she collapsed and died while jogging in New York’s Central Park a year ago. She died eight years to the day she got sober after battling alcoholism in her teen years.

 Hospice Volunteering – it is hope and more…more than traditional healthcare.  It is providing solutions for difficult times when hope is in question.  It is being close in a time of fear.  It is a friend with time to share.  It is laughter in the midst of tears.  It is dignity…it is humanity…It is what Hospice Volunteers do.  It must be love…it is called Hospice. Hospice Volunteer training classes are now forming for men and women 18 years old and up, bilingual appreciated but not required, for Hospice Touch, located in Santa Ana.  We visit patients throughout Orange County, and once training is completed, patient assignments are made near where the volunteer lives.

Members of mega-church Harvest Christian Fellowship were surprised this weekend by the sight of grief-stricken Pastor Greg Laurie, a Newport Beach resident, who took the pulpit despite the very recent death of his son, Christopher Laurie. “It was not a distant relationship,” Greg Laurie said. “Thankfully I don’t have to sit around worrying he didn’t know I loved him. He knew I loved him.” Laurie, 33, a graphic artist and Huntington Beach resident who spent the last three years as the church’s art director, died the morning of July 24 in a car accident in Corona, according to authorities.

Ryan Hawks has had three years to think of what he wants to say at Jennifer Henderson Deleon’s sentencing. “Justice in my eyes is kind of a paradox,” Hawks said. “But it’s the best thing I have to work with.” Hawks, 31, who lives in Cardiff by the Sea, will address Orange County Superior Court Friday morning on how the death of his father and stepmother three years ago has affected his life and how Henderson Deleon should pay for her role in the slayings of Tom and Jackie Hawks.

Candace Tift will be missed. She will be missed most deeply by her family, including her husband, Wade, and her 15-month-old son, Owen. She will be missed by her friends. She will be missed by her fellow teachers at Eastbluff Elementary School and other workers at Eastbluff Elementary. And she will be missed by her students, who will be returning to a suddenly and sadly changed classroom in just more than a week. Tift was riding her bike Wednesday evening along West Coast Highway, not far from her Costa Mesa home, when she was hit by a car driven by a woman who is suspected of being under the influence of prescription drugs.

Send CALENDAR items to the Daily Pilot, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626; by e-mail to lindsay.sandhamlatimes.com; by fax to (714) 966-4679; or by calling (714) 966-4625. Include the time, date and location of the event, as well as a contact phone number. TUESDAY The Costa Mesa Senior Center has its monthly membership meeting, which covers the programs offered, from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at the center, 695 19th St. West, Costa Mesa. Guests will be treated to entertainment and dessert, as well as a free issue of the Chronicle, the center's monthly newsletter.