Rod Ohira's People
Guided through grief
By Rod Ohira
Advertiser Staff Writer
Rita Hunt looked into the eyes of a high school classmate whose face was "basically cut in half" in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, searching for the right things to say. Two years later, she gazed at the unoccupied chair of a student struck and killed by a car, wondering if she should say something to her class about the tragedy.
Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser
What to say, how to act. Grieving is difficult because it's something we don't expect to do every day.
Rita Hunt says her purpose in life is to help others deal with their losses.
Hunt, 35, is a professional consultant and founder of When Is Now, a Honolulu-based nonprofit foundation that provides resources and information for people struggling with emotional crisis caused by loss, disappointment or separation, including end-of-life issues. Seeing a need for information on how to cope with death, she began researching the issue about four years ago and set up her foundation, WIN, last year.
The goal is to provide a road map to explore what she calls "emotional intelligence," she said, something clearly exhibited in America's mourning after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, D.C.
"Through information, awareness and preparation with emotional intelligence, we learn to understand our feelings," Hunt said. "Emotional intelligence guides our behavior to handle stress, frustration, anger, sadness, fear — the not-good feelings."
Hunt began devoting time to death education research after meeting one of the young survivors of the October 1997 Palolo Valley fire that killed seven people, including three young children. The boy had received counseling from a crisis-management team and appeared to be going on with his life. But it's when everyone is gone and you're alone, that private grieving takes hold she noted.
"There's a masking of, 'We're OK,' " Hunt said. "How it plays out has a lot to do with our different cultural groups."
In a recent meeting with 10 adults who lost loved ones, many admitted grieving privately, said Hunt.
"The crying comes out in the shower or when they're alone in the car," she said. "They all agreed we need more space to express our mourning. What's needed are messengers, people who will say it's OK to talk about how you're feeling, as well as people to tell us how they're feeling.
"But we don't like to show emotion because we're afraid of what people will say or think. It's important to release. It's in releasing that you totally experience yourself. We can go on, but the question is: Can we go on fully? There's so much room for expression."
Hunt, the eldest of Mary Cooper and the late Tom "Bobo" Cooper's four daughters, was born in San Diego and raised in Oklahoma City. At age 28, she was working as a researcher for Walt Disney Co. in California and thinking about going for a doctorate degree when the idea of coming to Hawai'i came to her in church.
"We had a guest visitor, Wally Amos, speak at our church in Los Angeles, and his love for the Islands intrigued me," Hunt said. Inspired by the cookie maker and longtime Hawai'i resident, Hunt moved to the Islands.
She was accepted to graduate school at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa in 1995 and earned her doctorate in education. "I didn't know anyone when I came here but the people here have never made me feel like a stranger," said Hunt, whose husband, Doc Anderson, is in public relations.
The personal experiences involving her classmate severely injured by the Oklahoma City bombing and the deceased student, as well as deaths in her own family, including the passing of her father in 1991, made Hunt think about the grieving process. "I've always felt frustrated about not being able to freely talk about my own losses," she said.
"I had this fuzzy picture about losses that I've been fine-tuning for a long time by running around looking for resources and trying to figure out what to do," Hunt added.
The pieces came together in Hawai'i, she noted. "When you lose somebody close to you, your life is going to change," Hunt said. "Loss causes us to think and make choices. I'm doing this to be another voice, a link, to give people information and let them know they're not alone. For me, it's a calling. I read it, sleep it and have bought in to what I'm doing. I believe this is my purpose in life."
By profession, Hunt is an informational speaker, consultant and free-lance editor and writer specializing in training manuals. She will be speaking on how handle emotional crisis to the Hawai'i State Teachers Association on Oct. 14 at Blaisdell Center.
She is also a member of Bereavement Network of Hawai'i, which was organized by Felicia Marquez-Wong of St. Francis Hospice, to provide community resources and support for grieving people.
Hunt was visiting the Dougy Center for grieving children and families in Portland, Ore., on Sept. 11 when she learned of the terrorist attacks.
"I wanted to get on a plane and go right away to help," she said. "I felt so helpless. From the perspective of 'let's get back to normal,' I think we've handled the mourning the best we can."
Reach Rod Ohira at 535-8181 or rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.
