Colleen Cason: Call goes out to Ventura County Gold Star moms

The language of grief has many dialects.

All who suffer heartbreaking loss share a general understanding of what the other grieving person feels. But after three decades of interviewing the bereaved, I’ve come to realize each kind of loss has a unique emotional vocabulary. Losing a home to fire is one dialect. Losing a child to mass murder is another. Only a person who has felt the same kind of heartache truly understands its nuances, those dark corners, that brand of grief, that breed of despair. 

Joyce Studebaker speaks fluently the dialect of a mother who opened her door one day in 2010 to find two military officers standing there to inform her that her son, 1st Sgt. Steven Studebaker, died while serving at Fort Hood, Texas. 

The Rio Mesa High graduate and career military man succumbed to what appeared to be natural causes, although his mother has never been satisfied with the documentation she received. At 48 years old, Steven was less than six months from retirement after 23 years of service in the Army and National Guard.

“I was looking forward to him coming home. Certainly not the way it happened,” said Studebaker, who lost her husband, Richard, to brain cancer in January 2003, just as Steven started a tour of duty in Iraq.

During the visit to Studebaker’s Camarillo home, one casualty officer handed her gold lapel pins in the shape of a star. The gold star appears on service flags families displayed to indicate they lost a son or daughter in combat. It eventually would apply to all men and women who died while in U.S. military service whether our country was at war or in time of peace. 

Studebaker, at 79, has been aware of the American Gold Star Mothers most of her life.

Founded 90 years ago by Grace Darling Seibold, who lost her son in World War I, the organization offers emotional support to women who made that same sacrifice and honors and assists living veterans. By presidential proclamation, the last Sunday in September is set aside to honor Gold Star moms and their families. 

Joining the group wasn’t on the top of Studebaker’s list in the days after Steven’s death. 

There was his daughter, Jessica, to care for. Studebaker also had to make a sad trek to Texas to clean out her son’s apartment. 

“I was busy taking care of his things; it was probably therapeutic,” she said. “To me, it was like taking care of him.” 

Eventually, though, she joined the Ventura County chapter of the Gold Star Mothers and took part in their events, especially ceremonies honoring veterans.

Then the chapter seemed to dissolve inexplicably, she said. A scan of The Star’s archives shows that after the deaths of the chapter’s longtime leader as well as a World War II hero who supported the organization, no mention is found of the local group.

After Studebaker tried to contact former members on her own with no success, she asked me to help get the word out. 

She has set up a luncheon on Feb. 27 at Marie Callender’s in Camarillo for any Gold Star mother interested in reviving the local chapter. Sue Pollard, the organization’s national president, supplied Studebaker with names of prospective members. So far, one indicated she plans to attend.

Under Gold Star Mothers’ bylaws, a chapter must have at least five members.

“I can't be the only Gold Star Mother in Ventura County (who) would like to meet others,” she said, while readily admitting this is a club no woman ever wanted to join. 

Studebaker is proud of her son’s military record. After he enlisted in 1986, he was assigned to the 82nd Airborne and became a master jumper. During his service in the National Guard, he worked drug interdiction.

She always believed, however, his true role lay in a helping profession, like medicine or teaching. She will never know what he would have done in his second act if he had lived. 

In the unique dialect her grief, giving of herself to comfort other military families eloquently speaks to her love of a caring son she lost too soon. 

— To RSVP for the Feb. 27 Gold Star Mothers luncheon, contact Joyce Studebaker at jcstude@gmail.com.

Email Colleen Cason at casonpoint101@gmail.com.