The Hope of a New School Year

The first day of school photos are on social media, being texted to family members, e-mailed to grandparents, printed for scrapbooks.  Their backpacks are new, full of freshly sharpened pencils and unused crayons with that old familiar smell.  Their outfits are new, planned out the night before; there’s a trace of excitement and anxiety in their smiles; maybe even a little frustration at having to pause and take the annual first day of school photo.

The first day of school brings hope for the new school year, whether it’s the kindergartner ready to make new friends, the fourth grader ready to be a ‘big kid’, the middle schooler headed for a new school building or the high school senior starting his last year at school and at home…

New adventures, new experiences always bring a certain level of anxiety (a mixture of fear and of anticipation of the unknown).  Along with that anxiety is a  bit of hope, hope that things will go well, hope that the change will be a good one. The kindergarten hopes they won’t miss their parents too much, the fourth grader hopes that math won’t be too hard, the middle schooler hopes for a fresh start and the senior hopes for answers to their future.

There will also be many first day of school photos this year that will bring a level of sadness, of yearning or regret.  A child has died, no more photos chronicling their milestones.  A father or mother has died and though the photos may be taken, there’s a shadow of sadness, the hope isn’t as obvious on their first day of school faces. But there is a trace of hope there too; going back for another school year, beginning the routine and structure of the school day, time spent with friends, turning the brain’s focus to abstract thinking and ideas, going back to school helps the grief, the sadness. 

Starting a new year seems to happen more in September than in January for most families.  Whether it’s new to school itself, a new grade level or a new building, the fresh start, the beginning again, helps us all get back on track.  For grieving families, despite the yearning and touch of sadness, the surge in grief, the new school year brings some sense that life will and does go on. Though our loved one may be gone from our day to day lives, the memory of their first day of school, the thought of what they would have to say as the school bus pulls up or the reminder once again - and still - of how much they are missed and loved brings them back to us, over and over again, first painfully, then with a bitter sweetness and then, maybe, with a warm, loving smile.

Enjoy the new school year, begin again, keep hope in your hearts.

Another Riff on Gratitude

We received a very generous donation at Children’s Grief Connection this week - generous enough to fund a family of four to attend Hearts of Hope Family grief camp.  We are very grateful and no doubt so will the grieving family be.  We would like to thank this person but cannot; this was an anonymous donor.

I understand and appreciate anonymity in giving.  I understand being concerned about getting on the ‘donor list’ of a charity and being barraged with future requests for everything from a silent auction item, buying tickets to a fundraiser, or being asked to consider planned giving opportunities.  As a donor to various charities myself I know the amount of requests I get throughout the year and especially at the end of the year.  I too sigh and weigh out whether I can give again or give more.  And as the leader of a charity -  the ‘fundraiser in chief’ -  I understand the need is great.  I know about not having the funds to do all that can be done for our families, and I understand the bottom line too, there’s only so much to go around. 

I can also appreciate the act of giving without expectation of recognition. St. Francis of Assisi taught us: For it is in the giving that we receive.  While I appreciate the humility of giving without expectation I also know the gratitude and desire to express it when I receive someone’s gift, in whatever form that takes.

I was a volunteer first responder for a number of years and often sat with families after a crisis, waiting for news, or having received the worst news possible.  In their glazed over look, still in shock, they always managed to muster up a thank you to the men and women who came to help, even if we weren’t successful.  Many times the first responders would be visibly uncomfortable as the family attempted to show their gratitude, to say thank you to the brave men and women who were doing their best to help their family. Often the first responders would reply with some form of ‘it’s all part of the job’ or ‘that’s why we’re here’ or ‘no problem’ - the only problem was the look on the family’s faces as their show of gratitude was discounted or denied; they needed their gratitude acknowledged. First responders don't volunteer for the gratitude, they give to their community, and in that giving they receive a greater sense of community, a comfort in knowing they have helped someone.  The first responders are also all too aware of the long road of grief ahead for these families, their job is done and the family’s has just begun.  There is an uncomfortableness with gratitude knowing how little they have done compared to what lies ahead for the family to do. Perhaps the best reply to their ‘thank you’ might be a simple ‘You are welcome’. Gratitude given and received, even under the worst of circumstances.

Under the best of circumstances, receiving a gift, a donation of money, of time, of volunteerism, deserves recognition, not only for the sake of the giver, for the sake of the receiver.  So, to our anonymous donor, thank you, so much, for your generosity and your caring for a grieving family with your support of Children’s Grief Connection.

Three Good Things

So Facebook has this 'challenge' called the "Gratitude Challenge" where you are challenged by a friend to list three things you are grateful for each day for five days and post them to Facebook. Initially I rejected the idea thinking- I practice gratitude every day, do I really need to 'go public' with it? In fact my 'challenger' friend led her challenge with the statement that I do not need any help counting my blessings. I still wondered: Do others really want to hear what I am grateful for?
I accepted the challenge because I liked the words of William Arthur Ward who said "Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it."  I also thought the only challenge about finding things to be grateful for is the challenge of remembering to post something on Facebook every day!

Turns out posting my gratitudes has been so easy and so reassuring that I don't want the challenge to end... The gratitude posts of my Facebook friends have been a delight to read. Some are beautifully written, some are poetic (literally - Haiku gratitudes), so many are insightful and spiritual. Some of the posts are bittersweet, for those who have lost a loved one.  Being grateful for the days you spent together hardly fills the emptiness of the days since they've been gone. Finding gratitude in memories can be a stretch...

This challenge reminds me of an activity we do at Hearts of Hope Family Grief Camp. Once pajamas are on, teeth are brushed and, if you're lucky, Karen has serenaded you with her guitar, campers, of all ages, are encouraged to take a few deep breaths and then think about three good things that happened that day.  Doesn't have to be big, huge things, it's the little things that are good.  The yummy mashed potatoes for dinner, meeting a new friend, hearing a favorite song. The activity is based on research that proved if you spend a week thinking of three good things your level of happiness increases and depression decreases (Seligman, Peterson & Steen, 2005). The study showed this effect can last as long as six months.

In the same study the researchers had participants write a letter of gratitude to someone who had been kind to them, even if they didn't know them personally. Again this activity significantly increased the
happiness index (they actually have ways of measuring happiness) and decreased depression (using the diagnostic Beck Depression Inventory). During the last sharing circle at Hearts of Hope everyone writes a thank you note to whoever it was that helped them get to camp. To their funeral director, their school social worker, their mom or a general thanks to one of our generous donors.  I've had the pleasure of hand-delivering one of those notes to an 'anonymous' donor and believe me the level of happiness increases for the recipient of a gratitude note as well as the writer.

Maybe Facebook figured out what we did at Hearts of Hope - being grateful for the good things and letting people know about it really can make you happier and less depressed, we like to say it 'brings hope and healing'.  What are you grateful for? Who do you want to tell?

Reunions

Summers are full of reunions....class reunions, family reunions - people reuniting, "coming together again after a long absence".  Funerals and wedding are reunions too, a gathering of family and friends to witness life's milestones.

Gathering, reuniting, congregating, meeting up...it is in our nature to want to connect with those we love and care about. Finding our 'people' in order to reminisce and remember, to support and affirm us, to laugh and cry together - in doing so we find comfort, solace, ease - we find ourselves.  When the world is spinning our of control there is something about a reunion that grounds us, brings us back to who we are, where we come from, who we come from.

This summer celebrated the twenty-year reunion of Camp Heartland, a camp for kids affected by HIV that my family was a part of for twelve of those years.  It was fun to see the photos of the now-adult faces of those scared but oh-so-brave campers and to see the then-college-student counselors' partners and children.  I yearned to get the hugs, meet the family members and hear the what-have-you-been-up-to? stories, to remember the campers not there, but in spirit.  Life happens though (I  was at the birth of my sweet grandson) and I didn't get a chance to attend the reunion, to reunite, at least not this time...

This summer Hearts of Hope Teen Retreat campers will get a chance to reunite. This reunion is inspired by those teens who showed up at a grief camp hanging behind their family, with gritted teeth and rolling eyes, not AT ALL excited to be there - and by the end of the retreat, they don't want to leave! Going home, back to their 'normal' lives knowing they had met and spent time with other teens who 'got it'.  Who got what it felt like to have a parent die, a sister or a best friend.  Teens who connected with the stories they told, memories they shared and cried and laughed about (yes, there's lots of laughter at a grief camp). We are planning on reuniting those teens on August 8 & 9 at Camp Esquagama near Virginia, MN - call our office 218-372-8420 for more details.

And just like any reunion, once the last piece of watermelon is eaten, the last homecoming game story is told, once all the memory have been shared or the bridal bouquet begins to wilt, we yearn.  Yearn to be there again, to go back, to re-live the moments. We yearn to see the people we love one last time, we yearn for the life that was...

But even if we could go back, even when we do reunite, it's never quite the same - it can't be.  Life is constantly changing and often unfair, life is full of regrets and full of hope, life causes us to curse sometimes and pray more often at other times, life is full with memories and full of dreams - the stuff of reunions - AND life is right now, what is happening in this moment that will make up the stuff of future reunions - be sure to live it fully.

My hope is...

By Coral Popowitz, Executive Director, Children's Grief Connection

At Hearts of Hope family grief camp our cuddly mascot teddy bear named "Hope" passes around slips of paper that say:                 
                          My hope is...

Blank slips meant to be filled in with words, wishes, thoughts, feelings, hopes for what the future may bring now that someone in their life has died.

Hope is defined at Hearts of Hope Camp as: the feeling that everything is going to be okay. Not great, maybe not even good... for awhile.

It's hard to think anything will be great again now that hearts are broken by death, but being okay, having hope, that seems possible.

And so "Hope" collects My hope is... slips in her big white basket. She holds them like a penny in a wishing pool, keeping the hopes and wishes of grieving children and families safe and sacred. 

Slips of hope that read:

My hope is... people can accept me the way I am, even with all my flaws.

      or

My hope is.... to not be scared of dying.

      or 

My hope is...to live with happy memories of my dad.

Death may take away our loved one, it may change our lives in big ways we're not sure we can cope with and in little ways we never imagined until we had to live on without them.  Life is hope and the death of someone we love doesn't have to take that from us.

This blog is about hope, about living life with hope, with gratitude and kindness. It's about people, places, things that inspire.  It's about trust, trust in the goodness of people and their ability to find hope...to know things will be okay. My hope is...these postings bring comfort, understanding, humor, joy and a little bit of healing to the hearts of all who read them.

The Trauma and the Blessing of Hearts of Hope Family Camp

By Coral Popowitz, Executive Director of Children's Grief Connection

"Children are most likely to adjust well after trauma when their parents are able to cope effectively, communicate openly and begin to enjoy life again."  Treating Trauma and Traumatic Grief in Children and Adolescents - J. Cohen, A. Mannarino & E. Deblilinger

This quote has been a guiding light during our transition from a children and teen grief camp to a full family grief camp.  The term trauma is used mostly to signify big horrific events, like 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina. When you’re a child, the death of your parent or sibling is a big horrific event. Childhood trauma is defined as “a single or multi-experience event threatening actual or perceived survival, of either the child or the child’s primary caregiver, overwhelming the child’s physiological, emotional and cognitive development and responses.” 

Having your parent die threatens your survival - imagine the questions and concerns a child has when dad has died: Who will take care of me? How we will eat (Dad makes the money to buy groceries)? Mom can’t live without Dad – she said so at the funeral, Will she die too? Who will protect us? When a sibling dies: It happened to my sister, could it happen to me too?  Will mom and dad and my life ever be normal again? 

Our November Hearts of Hope Family camp brought together children who’s dad died in a helicopter crash, and whose dad and sister died in a car crash.  We had a family who were grieving the loss of four miscarriages and stillbirths, and the death by ‘unknown causes’ of their older sister.  We had a five year old and an eight year old who came to remember and heal the suicidal death of their father and mother, respectively.  We had deaths that made television news, deaths that effected whole communities and excruciatingly private isolating deaths.  These were traumatized children and teens trying to adjust to life without their loved one; ninety percent were referred by their funeral directors. Only this time, the whole family was coming to stay; the adults would also experience the hope and healing of Hearts of Hope camp.

Friday evening found them greeted by a team of incredibly committed and compassionate companions in grief.  Each volunteer willing to share their own grief journey and experience, wearing a nametag that tells their grief story and connects them to campers and family members. With smiley face stickers symbolizing who died, every person at Hearts of Hope shares the universal experience of having a loved one die and knowing the journey isn’t over when the funeral ends. These hope-filled volunteers know the grief road and they also know the hesitation and anxiety that enters the room on Friday night will be transformed by Sunday morning.  So they welcome, they cheer, they play games and ‘break the ice’ of that anxiety.  

Saturday morning finds the kids and teens ready to launch into the day’s activities while hesitation and anxiety still lingers for their family members.  As their children go off with counselors to begin activities of fun and remembrance, filling their day with sharing circles, memory-box making, tie-dying and candle lighting, the family members embark on a similar experience.  Learning to cope through small group Sharing Circles, talking to others who share their concerns, questions, pains and progress. Spending time making stress balls, learning relaxation skills, drumming and the importance of self-care gives them hands-on coping activities. Hearing progress in the Shared Experiences panel of widows, suicide survivors, and parents whose children have died, being able to ask ‘How did you get here, ten-years later?’ or ‘How did you handle the teachers at school?’. To communicate openly with fellow travelers on the grief journey gives a sense that the road is long but doesn’t have to be lonely; others are there with you. Ending the day with the sacredness and solemnity of the candle lighting circle as the room brightens with their ‘hope for the future’ that each individual candle’s light brings.

Sunday morning when the families reunite with their children the ‘magic’ of Hearts of Hope continues on stage.  They see their children have had an emotional roller-coaster ride of laughter and tears, of fun and sadness, of joy and anger they clearly also have shared hope and healing. During the closing ceremony the adults break into the camp song and watch their children perform skits bringing new life and lots of laughter to their family. Finally, the balloon release allows them to stand together and send up a piece of love, anger, forgiveness, a wish or a prayer that the trauma they have experienced, the death of their loved one, is beginning to shift, things have changed but they are still a family.  

As they leave the family now has experiences of time spent with others their own age who share their journey, they learned their feelings are okay and there are ways to cope with those feelings, that people will listen, questions have been asked and answered by funeral directors, doctors and grief professionals, they’ve made friends, shared their hopes, laughed through their tears and found a little joy in life again. Families now have the connection of time spent together at Hearts of Hope to take them further along that grief journey, not as individuals but as a family.  Together they have found hope and healing. Hearts of Hope is blessed to share their journey. 

Children’s Grief Connection Celebrates 10 Years with Expansion of Programs

By Coral Popowitz, Executive Director of Children's Grief Connection

Family Grief Connection programs grows into weekend

Back in January of 2003, the Minnesota Foundation for Children founded by the Minnesota Funeral Directors Association hosted its first Camp Amanda-Minnesota grief camp for kids. By 2007, when I had the honor of becoming executive director, Camp Amanda- Minnesota had served nearly 1,000 kids at 13 Camp Amanda-Minnesota sessions. In 2009, a name change to Children’s Grief Connection and Hearts of Hope camp ushered in a new organizational era as a leading resource for children’s grief programs in Minnesota. Approaching our tenth year we have held 27 camps serving more than 2,000 grieving children at Hearts of Hope camp and teen retreat, over 900 family members in Family Grief Connection, and thousands more in our Community Grief Connection programs. We are especially proud to be partnered the last two years with the Minnesota National Guard at their annual Gold Star Retreat for children and families of our fallen military. As we move into our next decade we continue to grow as a leader in children’s grief resources for the region. In January of this year the board of directors voted to expand our programs into the neighboring states of North and South Dakota and Wisconsin. We will host our first Wisconsin camp November 9, 10 & 11 in Trego, WI. ALL Minnesota families are welcome just as ALL Wisconsin, North and South Dakota families are welcome at our McGregor, MN camp on April 12, 13 & 14, 2013. This expansion allows us to continue to grow our partnership with funeral directors. Children’s Grief Connection is unique in that it is founded, funded and supported by funeral service; most grief camps are associated with hospitals, hospice or insurance companies. We are proud of our partnership and our ability to pro-mote funeral service. It is with that partnership in mind that we expand our Family Grief Connection programs to better serve the grieving adults you work with and care for every day. While their children and teens are attending Hearts of Hope camp and teen retreat, adult family members will now have an opportunity to attend a full day and a half of activities, support and sharing, giving them the tools to re-build their lives after the death of their loved one. With a program that reflects the activities of their children’s experience at Hearts of Hope camp, Family Grief Connection hopes to provide families with the connections that will help them move forward in their grief journey, together, as a family. This pilot program includes free lodging and meals for the weekend thanks to our partnership with Thrivent Financial and Thrivent Community. We are limited to twenty families. A $100 refundable deposit per family is required to reserve a space. While our growth and program changes are exciting one thing remains consistent; our mission to bring hope and healing to grieving families leads us today as it did over 10 years ago. The founding of our organization by funeral directors, the supportive partnership we continue today and in the future is based on that mutual mission. Thank you funeral directors, for 10 incredible years.