Finding Light Through Loss

Grief is encouraged at Good Grief Camp. For the past decade, over the course of four days and three nights in June at an idyllic site on Flathead Lake, participants ages 6 to 12 engage in activities that acknowledge and address the complicated emotions associated with bereavement, providing a healing experience for any child who needs it.

The mission of Good Grief Camp is to facilitate “the expression and healing of children’s grief” in a camp setting, where participants can grow comfortable with one another and themselves throughout the four days of organized activities.

The first day is “getting to know you day,” where campers break the ice by introducing themselves and participating in a “naming circle,” a powerful ceremony to light candles for those they’ve lost. Volunteers from Drum Brothers, a family of drum makers, musicians, performers, and educators from Arlee, arrive with African drums for the kids to play.

The schedule of events is structured so that each day equips the campers with the tools and instruction they need to transition into the next. For example, the day-one naming circle prepares participants to share their stories on day two, when participants engage in more physical activities to process their grief. One such activity involves filling a vase with different colors of sand and a candle. Each participant tells their story as they put their color into the sand, which eventually forms a technicolor pattern. Camp Director and Founder Jo Graves-Gill then rings a Tibetan singing bowl to honor everyone’s contributions.

“The one thing I try to teach people is that grief is really normal. As a society, we don’t know what to do with grief and loss,” Graves-Gill said. “We know how to acquire things, but we don’t know how to do grief and loss, and so that’s why we’re so isolated. People are afraid.”

At bereavement camps such as Good Grief, participants still engage in physical and recreational activities in conjunction with their scheduled therapeutic activities. Children participate in an obstacle course, swim in the lake if weather permits, and go on hikes. For example, on day two, a Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks volunteer leads a group of campers on hikes and educates them about the nature around them. Adhering to the bereavement theme, he reads a book about how dinosaurs die, preparing the ceremony “to tell your story.”

“[The participants] are just loved, taken care of, fed, and given permission to cry and talk about their feelings,” Graves-Gill said. “And yet they are also having fun.”

Day three’s theme is “feeling your feelings.” At this age, children want to fit in and often feel lost and isolated. Grief can exacerbate these emotions, and their feelings can feel intense, overwhelming, and even painful. Therapeutic activities like the “suitcase” and “tear” activity help kids engage physically with their feelings. For example, to represent what it might look like to deal with heavy emotions, in the “suitcase” activity, each participant names an emotion and puts a rock in the suitcase.

“So finally, I’ll close up the suitcase, and I’ll say, ‘now, who wants to lift up the suitcase?'” Graves-Gill said. “[It’s] always the littlest one who tries to lift up the suitcase.”

The next activity, the tear activity, aims to make sense of the guilt that children sometimes hold inside by instructing kids to write their emotions on a piece of rice paper, and then watch the rice paper dissolve in water. “It’s a real visual way to help them let go of that guilt or regret.”

The night capper is a luminary ceremony that honors the loved ones lost. “It is kind of a sacred ceremony,” Graves-Gill said. Candles and bouquets sit on the table, and kids share photos and memories and play songs while receiving supportive hugs from their friends. “Everyone comes around and says who they are lighting their candle for.”

Finally, day four’s theme is “self-care and getting back to life,” where participants practice gratitude and yoga. Children write thank-you notes to their donors, and then the families come to pick them up. The last activity to close out camp is to take the roses used the night before and make a wreath. Each camper, along with their family members, contributes one floral element.

In fair weather, one volunteer paddles out to the lake with the wreath to Whitney Houston’s, “I Will Always Love You.” Once they paddle back, camp is over. Each participant goes home with a “warm fuzzy bag” filled with goodies and notes, like a themed stuffed animal.

These activities are opportunities for children to address their feelings and memorialize their loved ones in a shared setting, Graves-Gill said. Grief professionals and trained volunteers provide children with coping tools and resources to find comfort with others who have experienced similar situations.

Bereavement camps have been around since the 1980s, but the demand for them has increased in recent decades, especially with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to research by JAMA Pediatrics, approximately 43,000 American children have experienced the death of a parent from COVID-19, while about 6 million children in the U.S. will experience the death of a parent or sibling by age 18. Bereavement camps are common non-clinical interventions to normalize these feelings of loss, reducing or preventing symptoms of anxiety and depression.

Graves-Gill is no stranger to grief herself. When she was 21, her brother committed suicide. At that time, she was living with roommates who were unsure how to comfort her, leaving her emotionally isolated. Later, her sister died at age 36 on the couch from an unknown heart condition.

So when Graves-Gill’s mother passed away, she decided to volunteer for Camp Francis, a bereavement camp just outside of Great Falls. Galvanized by what she saw there, she eventually pursued a counseling degree specializing in grief and, later on, offered to teach about the subject at Flathead Valley Community College (FVCC).

Good Grief Camp began a decade ago, in 2014, with a group of nine campers. Due to the success of her class, FVCC students were eager to volunteer, help out, and be trained to set up shop for the initiative. Common responsibilities include painting for the art barn and assisting Graves-Gill. Before the first day of camp, each volunteer goes over the bios of the kids attending and discusses their stories. They learn about the developmental stages of grief and common misconceptions of bereavement through handouts and discussion.

For fiscal sponsorship, they partnered with United Way, a social services organization based in Missoula. Good Grief Camp registered as a nonprofit with a strong support backbone in 2017.

Camp is growing, and Graves-Gill intends to expand. Kids come from all over to attend — Graves-Gill recalls a camper hailing from Forsyth, a nine-hour drive away, because Camp Francis was full. In 2023, there were 32 campers and 44 volunteers. And to ensure that no family pays for their child to attend, the camp conducts year-round fundraising campaigns. Graves-Gill said she is particularly proud of this achievement as 90% of the campers last year were from families living below poverty level.

This year, Good Grief Camp is participating in the Great Fish Community Challenge, a valley-wide campaign for nonprofit organization that runs until Sept. 13.

Volunteers can begin helping out at camp at the age of 16, which allows them to participate in camp activities. Some are veteran campers who return to support the community. One volunteer was a camper for two summers. Eventually, she graduated from high school and went to college for her degree. She ended up back in the area and called Graves-Gill right away. She now serves on the board of the nonprofit.

Another volunteer from the FVCC class (who “was very, very shy and quiet,” Graves-Gill said) called her one day after his fourth year volunteering to ask for a recommendation letter because he was obtaining his counseling degree. He wanted to specialize in counseling patients suffering from grief.

As evidence of the growing need, Graves-Gill is expanding Good Grief Camp to include tween relief for those who need support but are too old to attend the summer camp, and too young to participate as a volunteer. The inaugural three-day Tween Camp will be this Oct. 17-19. Anyone interested in attending or volunteering should contact Good Grief Camp by calling (406) 755-6760 or [email protected].

Unacknowledged and unheard pain does not disappear on its own, and grief is not a problem to be solved. Even as people make heal through the grieving process, and appear to “look normal,” Graves-Gills said, “they’re hungry for someone to connect to.” Grievers might not physically isolate but emotionally isolate. Bereavement camps offer an intentional space to process difficult feelings so that grievers can heal and express themselves safely.

And after four days at camp, the children leave with a renewed sense of community and realize that they are a part of a larger network of shared experiences.

“They are not isolated anymore. They know they are not alone. They’re not the only ones that have lost somebody they love,” Graves-Gill said.

To learn more about Good Grief, visit their website or contact them via email or their phone number: (406) 755-6760.

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