Helen Hallum Graham

When Helen was about 12 or so with her family at First Presbyterian Church, by herself she went up to Dr. William Pressley who founded Westminster School. She said to him, "I want to come to your school." He said, "Come by my office tomorrow." At Westminster, Helen went on to become a social butterfly, Homecoming Queen, Head Cheerleader, friends with everyone-refining her ability to inspire and lead other people.

Helen loved going on hospital rounds with her father, Pappy Hallum, M.D., a renowned ophthalmologist, one of the first to welcome all people regardless of color into his practice and Helen said to him she wanted to become a doctor. "Women don't become doctors," he told her, so she married a doctor, and spent her life practicing psychological, spiritual, and energy healing (as a Reiki Master and Pranic Healer). Pappy's unfortunate admonition also inspired Helen to become feminist in supporting the higher aspirations of women.

Helen and her husband had a daughter, Shawn, and son, Bill. When they were attending Trinity School and Westminster, Helen met Donna Kichline who later married Candler Rogers, a law professor; they had four children: Shef, Heather, Heidi, and Holly. Candler died suddenly at the age of 38 and to shorten the story, Donna asked Helen that if anything were to happen to her, would Helen take her children. Helen said, "Of course." Shortly after, Donna got fulminating breast cancer, and Helen sat with Donna every day for 18 months as she died. Consequently, one day Helen found herself with a household of children (ages 7, 7, 7, 9, 9, and 11). It is not a mystery that later Helen became a Parenting Coach, and a Family Systems Therapist.

When the six children headed for college (all who attained Masters Degrees, and three with Ph.Ds), Helen also went back to university majoring in the multidisciplinary fields of psychology, religion, philosophy, and literature. Helen went on to earn the Masters of Social Work Degree at the University of Georgia.

Helen also had become an early environmentalist, taking a multimedia program she created titled "Whose Garden Is This?" to the White House. As a Christian, Helen was devout, but never very orthodox. She became a passionate spokeswoman for the twelfth-century saint and mystic, Hildegard of Bingen. Quoting Hildegard, Helen often said, "You don't have a soul, your soul has you." With her life-partner, Jack, Helen explored the spiritual path of Andean Shamanism which is the feminine counterpart of western masculine theology that emphasizes Word and Belief. For Helen, this was an exploration into eros, the counterpart to logos, seeing the divine Mother in everything and all as one.

Helen was adventurous. A few highlights of her life include sitting with Buddhist monks chanting prayers in the Ganden Monastery at 14,000 feet above Lhasa, Tibet; cuddling smaller brown and white panda bears in Chengdu, China; taking a dugout canoe to the mouth of the Davidson Glacier in Alaska, performing the ritual at midnight in the Temple of the Mother at Machu Picchu; walking along the cliff-edge to the medieval city of Castro on the Aegean island of Sifnos, lying in a deprivation tank in Queenstown, New Zealand, selected as the first to descend underground to experience the Lanzon, a sacred place in the Amazon Andes; in her sixties, she climbed the steep path in the Santa Rosa Valley of the Cordillera Blanca of Peru with a party going to 16,000 feet; riding the world's longest zipline on her 70th birthday; sitting in ceremony with the Q'ero Indians of Peru who gave the west three tiered spirituality, riding on the backs of two dolphins while holding on their fins in Tortolla, BVI. This doesn't cover it.

Helen married Jack Graham, an ordained Presbyterian Minister and a Licensed Professional Counselor, and he brought a seventh child, Mary, into the family. Together, Helen and Jack set up a Psychotherapy Clinic providing therapeutic services for 40 years, working with multi-generational family issues, parenting, relationships, addiction, bereavement, anxiety, and depression. Helen worked with a leading addictionologist, Paul Early, MD to create a program called Intensive Experiential Psychotherapy at Parkwood Hospital and Ridgeview Institute, which became the most effective program in addiction recovery and reducing recidivism; insurance companies had difficulty underwriting it. In her private practice, because of her competence and maturity, Helen became a therapist to other therapists.

Other people attached themselves to Helen as the mother they needed, and Helen welcomed everyone with open heart and open arms. As a child Helen often experienced others not listening to her or talking over her. Therefore, for her having a voice and being heard was important. She had a powerful voice. In the last decade of her life, the condition of aphasia meant she ironically couldn't find the words she wanted to speak, but she spoke more eloquently with her eyes at her home at Canterbury Court. She had the gift of seeing people and seeing into them. Her eyes always spoke of deep love.

If you wish to honor the life and soul of Helen Graham, she and her family would appreciate a donation to the Meher Free Dispensary, also a spiritual center located in Meherazad, India. Helen has visited and supported this center that provides urgent medical care in rural India. The average cost incurred by the Dispensary for a typical patient visit is $4.35, including doctors, labs, and medications (all free of charge to the patient).

The funeral will be held on Monday, April 7, 2025, at 2:00 pm, at Trinity Presbyterian Church. The address is 3003 Howell Mill Rd, NW, Atlanta, GA 30327.

To donate: go to https://www.meherfund.org/, then click on the orange button "DONATE" in the upper right, and one is given options to click on an option provided, donate by PayPal or Credit Card, donate by wire fund, or send a check to an Atlanta address.