Last fall, two members of Appalachian Zen House trained as volunteer facilitators for fortnightly gatherings of families who have suffered a death. One in 20 children will lose a parent before age 18, we were told.
Families we facilitate have lost a mother, a father, pet, child, sibling, grandparent, uncle or aunt. A grandchildren of a solo-parenting grandmother has died. Deaths are by sudden accident, murder, long or short illness, or suicide.
Last meeting before the summer break, the families tied messages to their loved ones onto balloons that floated together up into the evening sky, and took home mosaic memory tiles they had decorated with shiny colored pieces. "I have spent hour after hour tending our garden this spring. My husband loved plants and I am closest to him there." "Pop just held my little girl for hours after I brought her home as a tiny prem baby."
Our facilitators' training was beautifully prepared and documented. It was powerful in touching painful losses in our own lives, and the sustaining resources that helped us to process and heal. We personally felt deeply the catharsis of sharing together our common feelings, remembering, tears, delights, and gratitude for the lives of those now gone and for the related practical activities in the circle.
Each evening, families arrive and we serve them a meal of pizza, salad and soda. Donated tickets to ball games, the skating rink, cinema, etc are distributed. Children then join their age group and parents go to their own circle. A round of sharing names, the nature of loss, and what is happening in our lives follows. Then the groups of children take up age appropriate activities together that are fun, creative, explore their feelings around their loss, prompt imaginative recreations, memories and questions, or they just play together. We finish with a everyone holding hands and families take home pizza bags and more donated gifts.
The relief for the older children is particularly evident at being in a group their own age where the social difficulty of death is held in common instead of feeling a reason for exclusion. The adults support each other in procedural and practical difficulties, children’s responses, anniversaries, and social reactions.
We are deeply grateful to witness the sharing, healing, and gratitude that these meetings facilitate for us all.
If you know a family near State College that may like to participate, please phone Kelle 814 355 0850.
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