Dealing with the death of a loved one or friend can be difficult, but the Northeast Georgia Medical Center Hospice continues to find ways to help people deal with their grief.

Most recently, the organization has added Walking Through Grief — a support group for adults who have experienced the loss of a close friend or relative.

This new support group is a unique one. Instead of meeting in an office, the group gets together at Laurel Park in Gainesville for a walk.

“Everybody deals with grief differently — it can affect us mentally as well as physically,” said Jill Crunkleton, a hospice bereavement counselor. “Some people do best by simply talking to others, and some people need to move.”

The walking group meets at 8:30 a.m. Tuesdays. The roving support group started earlier this month and will conclude on June 8, but the center is considering making it a regular program.

The hospice also offers other support groups, including one for parents that have lost a child, which meets on the first and third Tuesday of every month.

“That group is for any parents who have lost a child of any age — not just parents of young children,” Crunkleton said. “There are a lot of older adults who have lost adult children — they grieve just as heavily as everyone else. There’s still that same sense of something not being right with the order of the universe. Parents never want to bury a child — no matter what age they are.”

Creating support groups geared toward specific types of loss is important, Crunkleton said. While there are some universal reactions in the grieving process, there are other issues that are loss specific.

“People who have a similar type of loss tend to be dealing with the same issues, so that can make the grieving process easier to cope with,” Crunkleton said. “The support in the group doesn’t just come from a person’s interaction with the facilitator — it’s about interacting with the other members of the group, too.”