Photo courtesy: Our TreeHouse
When Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote about the Five Stages of Grief, she didn’t intend for these stages to be a roadmap for grieving people. She had actually been studying the process people went through when given a terminal diagnosis.
Grief isn’t linear. Grief isn’t step-by-step. Grief is messy and confusing. Grief isn’t just an emotional response to death, it’s a physical and spiritual response as well. There is no part of us that is untouched when faced with grief.
Instead of stages, there are Tasks of Grief. They can happen concurrently and repeatedly. Some of the tasks are: accepting the reality of the loss, working through the pain of the grief, adjusting to an environment in which the deceased is missing, finding an enduring connection to the deceased while embarking on a new life. At Our TreeHouse, a nonprofit grief support center in Bellingham, we support grieving families, schools, and businesses to explore the different Tasks of Grief.
People used to believe that children should be protected and shielded from death. In the past 30 years, that view has changed. Now we understand that children actually do better when their grief is acknowledged and they are able to express their grief with their peers. That’s when the emergence of grief support centers started popping up around the country.
Our TreeHouse believes that no child should grieve alone. We are here to provide a healing, loving community to support the grieving process. This is our 10th year of providing Family Night, our support group for children 5 to 12 years old—and their caregivers—who have lost someone to death. In our first year, we had 3 families attend; this year there are 19 families.
At Family night, we start with a communal pizza dinner, after which the adults go upstairs with trained facilitators for their own support group, while the children stay downstairs for theirs.
The children are divided into small groups for Opening Circle. They pass the Talking Stick and share about their person who died. One young girl talked about how she misses telling her mom secrets. A boy quietly said how he feels guilty he didn’t spend more time with his dad before he died. At Opening Circle, grieving children can express their feelings, no matter what they are, in a safe environment. Children are never forced to talk. “I pass” is always an option, and once uttered, is never questioned.
Since children grieve through play, the children move into the main area after Opening Circle where there are a variety of activities. The Art Room is where a child can express an emotion through art. The Big Energy Room is where a child can get out pent-up energy, anger, or frustration. The Puppet Theater is where a child can explore the story of their grief or the death. The Tranquility Room is where a child can read a children’s book about grief, write poetry, or just have some quiet time.
With increased community support and funding, we were able to add Teen Night four years ago, a support group for teens ages 13 to 18. Since teens are on the cusp of adulthood, we provide a question jar where teens can ask anonymous questions to each other about how they deal with grief and loss.
One teen said about Teen Night, “Our Treehouse offered me a place I could be normal and not feel pressured to explain myself to everyone. I was surrounded by people my own age who understood what I was going through, but didn’t force me to talk when I wasn’t ready to. We were all there for the same reason, which gave us a unique, silent bond. Treehouse offered me a safe place where I could begin to understand what it truly meant to lose a parent.”
Our TreeHouse isn’t here only for grieving families. We are available for any school in Whatcom County after the death of a student or a teacher. When children are grieving, they aren’t learning. While we can’t take the grief away, we can provide a space for the grieving to begin, a place to know they are not alone.
We are also available for any business in Whatcom County should they experience the death of an employee. When a death happens at a business, management is often at a loss for how to support the bereaved and the co-workers who are close to them. Our TreeHouse can come to your business and talk staff about ways to support the bereaved. When an employee is grieving, it’s hard for them to concentrate and maintain their normal workload. Getting support for the management and staff is a way to support the bereaved.
Death happens. And when it does, Our TreeHouse is here to support those who are left.
For more information about Our TreeHouse contact Colleen at colleen@our-treehouse.org or go to our website: www.our-treehouse.org.
