it's almost summer camp time!

Okay - I know I just did a teeny blurb on camp, but here's the extended version. Last year I volunteered for the first time at El Tesoro De La vida, a grief camp for children ages 6 - 16ish who knew someone who died. I at first didn't know what I was getting myself into, only that I knew I loved kids, loved going to summer camp as a kid. The site is beautiful - tucked away in the woods West of Ft. Worth - and primitive. The lower camp (younger kids) cabins do not have electricity and are just really wood boxes with screens over the windows. We sleep on tiny twin-sized cots, the kind with the crinkly plastic cover that are only like 2 inches thick. We shower down the hill a ways, sometimes with frogs or spiders cowering in the corner. At camp there's also equestrian facilities, archery, swimming pools, and a creek that when it's full there's all kinds of good fishing to be had.

When I tell people I'm excited about going to grief camp the first question I usually get is, "Greek camp?" and I say, "No, grief camp. Like, boo-hoo." So then then next question is invariably, "How could anyone be excited about grief camp? Do you just sit around and cry all the time?" Now honestly, if that was the case, do you think I would go back? Heck no. We tell folks that camp is 95% fun camp stuff (smores, staying up late giggling, camp songs, camp food, etc.) and 5% "someone you know died." My job is to be a cabin buddy (since we have actual licensed counselors, we can't say 'camp counselor') and last year (and I think this year) I'm in lower camp with the 8 year old girlies. I'm so stoked, you don't even know.

What you also don't even know is that these kids have been through a ridiculous amount of trauma...sometimes their sibling has died from cancer but sometimes they've witnessed really violent deaths. The crazy thing though is that they're still kids and this camp gives them a place to run around and enjoy...well, being a normal kid...where nobody is going to think they're weird or a freak because they've got all this emotional stuff going on, because everyone else there knows someone who died too. What's even more is that I really REALLY hate creepy crawlies but dude, dealing with a spider in the shower is nothing compared to watching my dad jump out of a car on the highway. This camp gives some serious perspective.

My grandfather had just passed away last year when I went and there's this part at the beginning of camp where alllll the campers and counselors and buddies sit around and the director tells people to stand up if their mom died, then those folks stand up, and then they move on to dad, then siblings, etc. I stood up when they called grandpa, and then later when we were walking with our sweet little cabin, one girl came up, grabbed my hand and looked up at me and said, "My grandpa died too." I was a puddle right then - I just looked at her and said, "Sucks, huh." And she nodded, and we walked some more.