A week at grief camp
The natural wisdom and surprising playfulness of kids navigating life after loss.
This August, after my annual family trip to Cape Cod, I found myself back at summer camp for the first time since I was a kid. The cold lake water, pinecones, messy bunk beds, and cardboard milk cartons—it all felt comfortingly familiar, just like I remembered it. Pure Americana summer.
But this time, I wasn’t a camper, and I wasn’t at a “normal” summer camp.
I was a counselor at a camp of grieving kids.
Every one of the roughly 165 campers who were present that week had lost a parent, sibling or primary caregiver.
To give you a little context: I was volunteering with Experience Camps, a no-cost, week-long camp for kids who are grieving. Experience Camps has branches all over the country, but I’d found myself at the original all-boys camp, fondly known as “ManEx,” located amongst the forested lakes of central Maine.
Going into it, I knew it was likely to be an emotional week for me working with kids who had experienced such deep loss, so early in life.
But I couldn’t have prepared myself for the depth of emotion the kids stirred in me as I got to know them and tried to imagine myself in their shoes.
And it wasn’t so difficult to imagine. I wasn’t much older than some of the older campers when I lost a parent myself.
My mom died just two months before my 21st birthday. A junior in college at the time, I thought I was ready for adulthood—living off-campus, balancing work and school—but in reality, I was still a kid. Her death froze me. Moving forward felt like leaving her behind. For years, I struggled with this feeling of being stuck, unwilling to grow beyond my life with her.
It’s been years since my mom died, and sometimes I forget just how raw the pain of grief can be. But when anniversaries or new grief milestones come up, the memories resurface. That week at camp, surrounded by grief, I recalled a time when, just days after my mom died, I thought about driving my car into a wall, overwhelmed by emotions I couldn’t escape.
The years following her death were dark, and while it’s uncomfortable to admit (and maybe read), these are the real feelings I dealt with from age 20 to 27—almost a decade of my life.
Now, imagine feeling those feelings at five, 10 or 15. Yeah… exactly.
So when I was offered a chance to volunteer this summer, I jumped at the opportunity. That was how I found myself up in Maine as a co-counselor for a bunk of ten rambunctious 10-year-old boys. They made me laugh, cry, tap into my inner reserves of patience, and, on several occasions, question whether I actually want kids (spoiler: I do).
The campers I met that week, all ranging from 10 to 17 years old, are some of the most creative, thoughtful, wise and wild kids I’ve ever met. From talent-show performances worthy of an Oscar to a testosterone-fueled flurry of chest bumps, they seamlessly shifted gears throughout the day from high-energy play to deeply vulnerable conversations about missing their person.
Witnessing them day after day brought me to an even deeper appreciation of the inseparability of grief and joy. I cried sharing my own grief. I danced to Taylor Swift in the cafeteria. Somehow it was all integrated, all part of a larger whole: the fun, the silliness, the connection, the sadness, the tragedy.
Being with the kids brought so much to the surface around my own loss and how difficult it was to move forward after my mom died. Having gone through it myself, I didn’t realize how much I’d have to learn from these kids—I’d been grieving for over a decade, after all. But I left camp in awe of their resilience, their ability to express grief so openly, and their willingness to enjoy life even in the midst of pain.
I learned so much from these kids over the course of just one week—far more than I can share. Without the resources and coping strategies of an adult, they still found ways to process their grief and embrace life after unimaginable loss.
Here are a few things they can teach us.
They transform loss into connection.
Camp showed me that while experiencing the death of a loved one can be earth-shattering, it’s also an opportunity to create deep and long-lasting bonds. While every one of those kids would trade their time at camp to have their person back, they also understand the incredible value of what the camp brings to their lives. Friendships are formed, a sense of brotherhood and belonging flourishes, and the kids develop leadership, communication skills, and even job opportunities for the future.
One of the most powerful experiences for me was sitting around the campfire, listening to stories from both first-time campers and kids who had been coming to camp for years. Some of the older campers—who had returned year after year—spoke of their plans to come back as counselors. They told me that they wouldn’t necessarily be friends at school; they were jocks, dungeons and dragons nerds, and theater kids. But at camp, they were brothers. The idea that these boys could continue to grow and process their grief together, summer after summer, brought tears to my eyes.
They’re not afraid to talk about death.
Most adults struggle to talk about death—stumbling over words, offering mostly empty and generic condolences (no fault because society doesn’t encourage or teach us), or worrying about upsetting grievers by asking them about (of all things) their grief.
These kids weren’t afraid to talk about death. They discussed it in a surprisingly straightforward way, and they held space for one another with compassion and without judgment.
For some of the adult volunteers, this openness was sometimes shocking. One volunteer, who had never experienced a significant loss, told me how taken aback he was when a camper casually mentioned his parent’s suicide, and another boy started asking him questions about it. It was a stark reminder of how much more comfortable kids can be with death than adults. These kids are more open and curious about death than most adults! In those moments, I found myself learning as much from them as they did from me.
While some campers are eager to share and with a pearl of surprising wisdom about them, others remain quiet, retreating into their shells. But over time, and after returning year after year, even the quiet ones begin to open up.
During a group meeting with a grief specialist, one of my quieter campers shared a story about receiving a sign from his dead father just days after his passing. It’s not my story to tell, but I can tell you that the hairs on my arm stood up. I had to stop myself from audibly gasping because it was one of the most incredible stories I’d ever heard. (It made me think of the book I have been reading, Signs, which I enormously enjoyed and highly recommend!). Many of the kids showed wisdom far beyond their years.
They can hold both the good and the bad.
The programming at Experience Camps focuses more on having fun (from late-night milk and cookie deliveries to ridiculous counselor competitions) than processing grief. These are kids, after all, and what is life is not finding a way to balance grief and joy. The camper's days are a kids' dream come true, complete with banana boating, soccer, arts and crafts, basketball, STEM classes, rock climbing, and pickleball. (But the highlight for most campers is “college league”: think Color Wars, but on steroids.)
It’s hard to describe the feeling you get as a counselor when you see one of your campers smiling with pure joy after having heard them describe their heart-breaking experience with loss just hours before.
The kids’ ability to flow seamlessly between play and grief was a humbling reminder of just how resilient we humans are.
We all need space to grieve.
One of my campers told me: “I like coming to camp because I can be myself here… at school, no one understands what I’m going through, but at camp, I can look around and know that every single person is grieving too.”
Spending 24/7 with these boys for seven days, I became deeply invested in their well-being. I’ll never forget seeing a widowed mother pick up her camper along with her three other children. That moment broke me. It was a reminder of how much these families endure. Camp provides a space where the kids can release some of their emotional burden in a safe, supportive environment.
We all need a space to grieve, and sometimes we need the support of community and nature to help us process a loss. I was excited to learn that Experience Camps has a program for adults too (learn more about it here). If you’re inspired by what Experience Camps is doing and you want to support grieving kids, volunteering is a powerful way to honor the connection between love, loss, and community. Or if volunteering isn’t for you, consider making a donation to help a kid make it to camp next Summer.
#bestweekever
— Maura