Cooper went missing on Saturday, July 12, reportedly having left her home in the early morning for a jog. On July 15 Cary police confirmed that a body found at a construction site was Cooper’s, and family and friends were left to grieve.

As part of its monthly grief support group program, St. Francis United Methodist Church will host a musical session Thursday at 6 p.m. The session will feature Stacy Grove, an interfaith minister and associate chaplain at WakeMed Cary Hospital who uses voice, flutes and a crystal amethyst bowl.

“We don’t want anyone to grieve alone who feels like they’re stuck in that process,” said Linda Richardson, a lay leader of the grief-support group at St. Francis United Methodist Church in Cary.

The session is nondenominational.

“We’re looking to open this to the full community whether you go to church or don’t go to church,” Richardson said.

Richardson, who facilitates the program with another lay leader and a retired pastor, called the session “a place that is safe to come and express your feelings.”

Richardson began attending a 13-week GriefShare program after the death of her father in 2002. She then started the program at St. Francis.

Thursday’s session is part of a monthly grief-support program that grew out of GriefShare.

Typically the support group’s monthly program includes a speaker followed by social time.

“We felt it was important to have after care … with other people who understand the intensity of that loss” of a loved one, Richardson said.

Grove said her ministry addresses various types of life transition, including the effects of surgery or cancer and not just end of life.

“Sometimes it’s about offering prayer and connecting … at the soul level,” Grove said.

Though she sings and uses instruments, “I usually don’t play any traditional music,” Grove said.

Those for whom she plays are not only sick or dying but also the loved ones whom the illness or death also affects.

“The music is often as much a bridge for them to let go as it is for the person at end of life to let go,” Grove said. “The vibration [from the music] becomes the bridge that helps the person release whatever they need to release.”

The effect that Cooper’s death has had in Cary and elsewhere compelled Richardson to put the session together.

“I kept trying to think what I can do to make this better,” Richardson said.

Richardson both lives and works in the Lochmere neighborhood, where Cooper also lived.

Even though she did not know Cooper, during the search effort following Cooper’s disappearance, Richardson said she e-mailed the Windsong neighborhood with updates and “just did anything I could to promote awareness throughout Lochmere about this situation.”

The outcome hit her hard.

“For me this was just unbelievable to go through,” Richardson said.

“Our whole office was devastated. … It was just unimaginable to us.”