Send to Grief Camp or Not? That is the Question....

This has been an issue that's been weighing on me for a while.  Mainly because I feel like, when it comes to my children and their grief process...I think I've been doing a pretty good job as a mom.  We've counseled when we needed to, talked openly about what happened and how that's affected our lives, and honestly grown together into a family that I never thought we'd be ('cause we're missing one), but ultimately I'm proud of.

But now I'm facing a dilemma.

Both of my older children have attended a grief camp out here in Colorado called Camp Comfort.  I know that there are programs like it all over the country and from our experience...I can't say enough about it.  They accept kids 6-12 and for 2 days, each child has their own counselor who will be with them the entire time.  You kid wants to horseback ride?  Fine.  The counselor will take them.  Swim?  They'll get them suited up and in the pool.  Crafts?  They're standing by with the glue.

Camp Comfort allows the kids to play, but they also have activities to help the kids deal with their grief.  They can make memory jars or dolls that look like the person they've lost.  They bring pictures so they can talk about their loved one.  And if they don't feel like participating in those activities...that's okay.  Their counselor will bring them over to do something else.

Like I said, both of my older children have experienced Camp and loved it, mainly because they had a weekend to do what every kid dreams of doing.  I get the feeling with my two older children (because they were 5 and 3 when my husband died), that it was actually less about the grief activities and more about the fact that they got to do so many fun things.  I sent them both when they were old enough because I wanted them to be around other kids and talk to people other than me about what they were feeling.  And the weekend was a success.  For both of them.

Well, now my youngest is 6 and she wants to go.  Again...I think it is less about the loss of her dad and more about the fun activities.  And that's okay.  My problem is that I feel like my youngest is one of those children who might be...how do I say this?...susceptible to other people's grief.  That is...she may not be grieving now, but once she gets around others whose grief is more fresh and raw...she may feel like she should be behaving the same way.  Whether the actual grief is there or not.

Believe me...I'm not ignoring her grief or trying to gloss over what could someday be a problem.  I realize that since she lost him so young (she was only 1), her grief may happen later or in ways that I'm not expecting.  But I do think that sending her right now could send us into a regression we might not have otherwise.

What do you think?


Widow Chick (aka, Catherine Tidd) is the owner of www.theWiddahood.com and the author of the upcoming memoir Confessions of a Mediocre Widow (Jan. 2014).  She is also a writer for The Denver Post's Mile High Mamas and a contributor to several books on grief and renewal.

Contagious Diseases, Flying With Kids, and Other Ramblings

(Don't change the channel.  Yes, I changed the look of the blog.  The birds were starting to depress me.  I don't know why.)

Whew.  What a weekend.

I spent all of last week completely stressed out about a virus that was running rampant throughout my house.  Normally, I'm not one of those moms who worry so much about illnesses.  I don't douse my children in hand sanitizer, preferring instead to build up their little immune systems.  I would rather they not put anything into their mouths that is not supposed to be edible, but sometimes they do and who am I to judge?  And I don't quarantine them every time they come into contact with someone who has a cough (I used to do that when I was a mother of one, but no mother of three does that because she knows that if her child doesn't pick up that cough from the kid down the street, chances are they'll pick it up from McDonald's.  It's better to contract a virus from someone you know, don't you think?  Friendlier that way).

Anyway, I was stressed because we were scheduled to fly to Austin to celebrate my grandmother's 90th birthday.  And since she specifically said no presents, I was worried about giving her the gift that keeps on giving - some sort of respiratory infection - courtesy of my children.  Not only was I worried it would probably kill her, I felt sure it would make me the least popular grandchild.

It didn't occur to me until we were on our way to the airport that I had never done this before.  I have taken my kids on short overnight road trips, but I had never flown with all three children by myself.  As we all know, flying today isn't what it used to be and I had a slight panic attack as we entered the parking garage, thinking about getting all of the kids through security (yes, that was us in front of you in line, all three kids wailing and shoeless even though they didn't need to be, a fact that I didn't know until we approached the metal detector which always goes off, thanks to my bra manufacturer).  My son just about missed the train to get to Concourse C, something I thought was unintentional, but now I'm wondering if it was a foiled escape attempt.  And the fight for the window seat started early, with tears (from them) and threats (from me) that made me wish we were flying cargo which would make for one less argument.

But we made it on the plane (yes, that was us coughing behind you in row 22 and pulling the shade up and down because the person who had won the right to be in that seat was on a power trip and raising and lowering at will in order to piss off the less fortunate siblings) where, of course, the man in front of me strongly hinted that he wanted a scalp massage by reclining as far as he possibly could and then stretching his entire body so that the seat went back a couple of inches more.

(This is a side note, but why does that always happen to me?  I'm always the tallest woman on the plane and I noticed, when I looked around, that not one other person had reclined except the man in front of me.  The reclining of others brings out my inner bitch and forces me to knee the back of the seat just when I think you're starting to fall asleep and allow my tray table to fall and bounce several times during the flight.  I don't like the person I become when you recline.  And I'm sure you like it less.)

We finally made it to Austin and after getting off the plane, saw the smiling faces of my parents who had driven a few days earlier and picked us up at the airport.  We were there for less than 48 hours and tried our best to catch up with as many people as we could.  I loved hanging out with family members I never get to see and catching up with my grandmother, something I don't do as often as I should.

It's crazy to see how much we've all changed.  All of us cousins who were once wild teenagers are all settled and (yikes!) driving minivans.  Our attention was divided between the conversations we wanted to have with each other and trying to find various children who had wandered off to find reptiles to take home or mud to jump in.  And, to the surprise of my uncle, we bid each other goodnight both nights by 9:30 PM, and then stayed awake all night, not because of raucous partying...but because our children talk, snore, and sometimes beat us to a pulp in their sleep.

By the time we got home last night after our second flight in less than 48-hours (where I continually held the fact that it was Mother's Day over my kids' heads, hoping to guilt them into good behavior.  Yeah.  Didn't work), we were completely exhausted.  I put in a load of laundry that had already started to melt and mildew in my suitcase.  The kids took out the "fun stuff" in their backpacks and got ready for school the next day.  And in a blink the weekend was over.

But never forgotten.

Cracking the World Wide Open

 

I’ve been thinking of a blog for a while that I’m hoping I’ll be able to write next month about how well I’m doing.  I say “hoping” because mid-June begins my month of hell with a cluster of difficult dates like we all seem to have.  I’m “hoping” to write that blog about how, after 5 years, I keep doing better and better than the year before (which I am) and I’m hoping that this is the year that will be a turning point, the year that I will be able to acknowledge those dates without the nervous breakdown I seem to have during that 30 days every year.  We’ll see if I’m able to write that blog in a few weeks.  

Here’s hoping.

I do feel like I’m doing better.  I feel like life has given me a lot to look forward to and be grateful for and that I have created things to be grateful for and look forward to.  

But this morning I was talking to a couple, both of them nurses and the parents of my daughter’s friend, about my husband’s organ donation and, of course, out-of-the-blue, I began to cry a little.  I was trying to give them a few tips on how to handle the family, should they ever find themselves in a situation where they’re helping with a possible organ donation.  As we all know, there are times when we can tell these stories like robots, recounting them like they’ve happened to someone else.  And then there are times when we can’t help but have one detail strike us expectantly.  And then the tears will fall.

The couple was gracious enough to cry with me.

 Yesterday I played hooky for a little while, feeling a little bogged down by all of the things I’m trying to accomplish.  And nothing feels better than, when you have a lot going on, turning off your computer and doing something completely unproductive and frivolous.  So that’s what I did.

I started watching LarryCrowne yesterday afternoon, a movie I wasn’t all that particularly interested in seeing, but was on at the right time so I thought I would give it a go.  And after the beginning, when Larry loses his job and looks so completely devastated, I almost turned it off.  Because being the empathetic person that I am, I can’t help but feel like I’m taking a physical blow when I’m witnessing someone else go through something difficult, whatever it might be.  And I wasn’t sure if the movie was falling under the category of “frivolous”…something that I really needed yesterday afternoon.

I’m glad I stuck with it.  There were parts that were a little silly and a little hard to believe, but Tom Hanks made it all worth it.  His facial expressions and unassuming demeanor throughout the movie made it all worthwhile.  And when it ended, I sat there and tried to figure out why the movie affected me so much.

And then it came to me.

After all of the terrible things had happened to him – his layoff, his fear of losing his home – Larry Crowne treated the world like it was a whole new place for him.  He went back to college and thrived, something he would have never done before he lost his job.  He met up with a new “gang” of friends because he decided to buy a scooter to save gas money, something he would have never done before he lost his job.  And as the movie went on, Larry Crowne became a new person and – dare I say? – happier for losing his job.

He was forced into a new life and when he was, it was like he just opened himself up to everything.  When someone suggested he go riding with a group of scooter enthusiasts, you could see the look on his face that said, “What?  Who me?” and then “Why not?”  He hopped on the bike and began tooling around with a group of strangers who would become his friends.  It was like once he lost everything…he was open to everything.

And that was something I could really relate to.

I’ve had so many overwhelming moments since my husband died.  Too many to count.  But I’ve also had moments of deep courage and unshakeable faith in myself and what I can do.

Too many to count.

There are so many things I would have never known about myself and never known what I was capable of until my world cracked wide open, that afternoon in July when he died.  It was like when I was left with what I felt like was nothing, I had no choice but to create something.  And then I created much more than I ever thought I could.

So thank you, Larry Crowne, for reminding me that the moments that sometimes feel like the end are actually the beginning of something else that we may not have even thought of yet.  Thanks for reminding us that Devastation also travels with its counterpart:  Opportunity.  Thanks for reminding us that, sometimes, when life feels like it has cracked wide open…

…it may be because it’s making room for something else to grow.


Widow Chick (aka, Catherine Tidd) is the owner of www.theWiddahood.com and the author of the upcoming memoir Confessions of a Mediocre Widow (Jan. 2014).  She is also a writer for The Denver Post's Mile High Mamas and a contributor to several books on grief and renewal.