In a new memoir, Once More We Saw Stars, father Jayson Greene vividly recounts the raw feelings after his two-year-old daughter Greta died and his continuous journey through grief.
Evermore is dedicating this Father’s Day week to bereaved dads who will always be fathers.
A stunning accident claimed the life of two-year-old Greta Greene in 2015, when a piece of masonry fell from a building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan and struck her in the head.
In a new memoir, Once More We Saw Stars, her father Jayson Greene vividly recounts the raw feelings after the loss, his journey through grief with his wife Stacy, and the couple’s striving toward hope.
Q. You’ve spoken about writing as a tool for survival. Is that what brought you to write this memoir?
A. Journaling is a common approach to grief. I wrote a book because I’m a writer, but writing is an instinctual thing. I mean, I’ve been to Compassionate Friends meetings and other sorts of grief retreats.
People have written pages and pages and pages about their child or their loss, because writing is a profound way to process grief.
Q. How is promoting the book and talking to people and continually retelling the story?
A. It’s cathartic.
Telling the story of what happened to Greta is a way of testifying. I think that’s probably true for many.
One of the things that you do when you go to a grief support group is — because there might be somebody new there every time — you retell the story. And you know, every time you do that, it’s a way of acknowledging that you’ve been marked, because people might sort of intellectually know, ‘oh, yeah, there’s, there’s Jayson, that horrible thing happened — they lost their daughter, and how tragic.”
But in the course of a regular day, it’s not exactly at the surface of your interactions with people. It’s often several layers down. Sometimes you yourself forget the degree to which you are always grieving that person. I’m doing what most grieving parents do in a somewhat different set of circumstances. And through the sort of conduit of a book, and I’ve written the book, and it’s out there, and people are asking to speak to me.
I am grateful for the fact that I’m able to talk about my Greta all the time right now. And there’s a context for it. And there’s a receptive audience for stories about Greta.
There are a lot of people who will listen to me talk about her life, how much we loved her, how much we still love her. And what happened. So in some ways promoting this book has been healing.
Q. What would you like people to know about Greta?
A. She was very talkative from a very early age. She learned how to talk really early on, around 13 or 14 months- words and some sentences -which was startlingly early. But it gave us a chance to hear a lot of what she thought which was very, very meaningful. We feel very lucky to have had that.
She was very opinionated. And she had a really developed sense of humor. She always seemed to be smiling at a private joke.
Q. What does it mean to be a writer finding the right words and language to convey the vast and continuing consequences of grief?
A. As I’ve talked to people, I have learned a lot about the words that we assigned to our feelings. I’m a writer. And that’s basically what I spent my life doing is assigning words to my feelings, I’ve thought about it maybe a little bit more intensely, because it’s been my focus forever.
Healing has been a word that’s meant something to me. I remember thinking about my grief as a massive wound, even right in the days after the accident, My mind seized on this metaphor of wound care — the idea that I had massive life-threatening wound on my body, and if I didn’t spend every single day cleaning it and tending to it, and changing the bandages and applying salve that it would infect and kill me.
That’s what blunt force trauma, emotionally speaking, feels like. That’s what acute shock and catastrophic loss feels like. It is very literally threatening the fabric of your existence.
Everything you’ve ever understood is completely destroyed in an instant and that does feel life threatening. I mean, it is not going to literally stop your heart. But it feels like annihilation, because it erases everything that you thought you knew, it erases all your context.
Q. Jayson has written a Washington Post column about being a grieving parent on Father’s Day and other holidays. He says people struggle to know what to say to grieving parents.
A. People worry so much about what to say to grieving parents.
I always try to say that you’ll never say the right thing because there is no right thing to say what’s most important is that you listen to the person, and that you’re there for them.
The other thing I would say to that person who’s worried about what to say, is that you might step on a landmine. And that’s also not the worst thing that happened to that person that day.
If you’re talking to someone who’s just lost their kid, you saying something dumb is not going to matter. all that much, because they are grieving something so much larger than you, or your concerns about what to say. The only thing you can really, truly offer — the only true currency you have — is yourself. And if they get mad at you, just take it as part of what you can be there for, but they’re processing a lot of feelings. If they momentarily flare up, and you have the strength to absorb that and sit there with it and allow them to work through it, the chances are that they’ll probably vent at you and then soften and say that they’re sorry. And then you can both sit in that together.
Q. As you have what have other grieving parents connected with?
A. The stuff about the shock really speaks to grieving parents, as much as I can tell.
When I was sort of reeling from the loss, I had the nastiest, most poisonous, bitter thoughts I probably ever had in my life. And they’re all very clearly rendered in the book.
I think a lot of people have felt that — it spoke to memories they had. People have found a lot of resonance in some of those feelings — I don’t know that those kinds of feelings have made it to the page in a lot of published books about grief.
Q. What is your favorite passage in the book?
A. Probably the last two pages where I’m talking both to Harrison (his living son, who is now three years old) and to Greta, because it’s such a hard, hard and long journey to the place where I felt like I could hold them both inside of my heart.
I wrote it shortly after Harrison was born, and he was still very new to the world, closer to where Greta was, than he is now. Now, he’s very much of this world, which is a joyful thing. But you know, it also means that there’s distance between who he is and who Greta was. But in that moment, they were very close. And so I felt like I could sort of address them both. And it was maybe the only time in my life I’ll be able to feel that and so being able to capture that feeling and write it. To have it be the last two pages of the book is very meaningful to me.
Also read:
Am I Still a Father? — After his son Jon’s death, Ron Kelly helps other fathers live with their grief.
Camp Erin is the largest national bereavement program for kids and teens ages 6 to 17 who are mourning the death of someone close to them. Photo courtesy of Frank McKenna.
Evermore is giving focus to younger siblings who have suffered the death of a brother or sister. During the summer months, many surviving siblings are away from the structure and support system that school provides. Being with caring adults and peers who share their experience is extremely important. Bereaved parents are often so devastated by the death of their child, they can’t be there for their surviving children in the way they want to and need to be.
To some, Karen Phelps Moyer seems to have immersed herself in sadness and grief. In 2002, Moyer, a mother of eight who lives in southern California, helped found Camp Erin, the largest national bereavement program for kids and teens ages 6 to 17 who are mourning the death of someone close to them.
The free weekend camp serves more than 3,600 campers who attend camp in 53 sessions across 46 locations. There, among others who are mourning, they talk about their loved ones and their grief, and they have some fun too.
It’s one of several efforts Moyer is involved in to support people navigating life’s hardships. Eluna, the nonprofit that runs the camp, was founded in 2000 by Moyer and former Major League Baseball pitcher Jamie Moyer. Eluna runs a series of programs supporting thousands of children and families annually all at no cost to families, including Camp Mariposa, a program for kids affected by a family member’s substance abuse. Moyer has also launched a business to help widows date again.
Karen Moyer co-founded Camp Erin — the largest national bereavement program for kids. “I think that no child should grieve alone. I really believe that and live that,” Moyer said.
For many, discussions about grief and death aren’t easy, but Moyer says she finds hope in her work with those who are struggling.
We checked in with her to learn more about her work with Camp Erin and how grieving children can benefit from attending a grief camp.
Q. How did the foundation come about?
A.I was married to a professional baseball player and through our journey, we were around other people and kids, who were in some type of distress. We met a young woman named Erin through Make-A-Wish and got to be a part of her last two years of her life as she battled cancer. We knew her family. I had known about a [bereavement] camp that was in the area where I grew up in Indiana.
When she was passing, we thought this would be a great way to honor her — to model that camp and name it after her. We were thinking about her sisters as they grieved. So Camp Erin started. We partnered with the hospice that her family had used. And it grew exponentially across the United States and Canada as a model for camp for kids ages 6 to 17 who grieve the loss, sometimes multiple losses, of people close to them.
Q. How do kids experience grieve differently? What’s most difficult for them beyond the loss?
A.I find children to be pretty resilient. I find it depends on how they’ve lost their loved one.
A tragic loss, certainly the suicide losses, are much harder to deal with. We teach them how to memorialize them and how to remember them. We give them an opportunity to say goodbye.
Q. What is it about this issue that has touched you so much that you would want to be around it all the time? Death is a hard thing to talk about for so many.
A.I grew up in a family where my dad’s dad was an undertaker. And when I was with my grandfather when he was passing, I was comforted by hospice.
It does take a unique set of personality traits to comfort these kids, but my whole heart is just with them. I feel their sadness and I’m grateful that there is a place for them to go and have fun and they are getting better and they don’t even realize it.
Q. What tips do you have for parents who are sending their children to a program like yours?
A.Trust the history of what we’ve been doing. Trust the incredible model and that we partner with people who are experts. This is what professionals who work in grief do all the time, working in grief, whether it’s a bereavement organization or hospice.
Karen Phelps Moyer and some campers.
And actually, I think, at the end of the day, there is gratitude because I think when parents are grieving the loss and you are just trying to hold it all together, having their child at Camp Erin becomes a moment where maybe parents can focus on themselves. They know their child is being taken care of, and it’s helpful to them, but also helpful to parents.
The camp is a silver lining in a bucket of sadness.
Q. Are there any specific stories or moments at a camp that you’ve experienced that have really stuck with you?
A.Every time I go to camp, I am touched. And my heart is absolutely filled with these kids and their stories and their sadness and their smiles and their laughter that they get in during those 2 1/2 days at camp.
I’m always touched by the littles. They are as young as six at our camp. Typically, on a Friday, they are pretty exhausted because of their week, but then they get to release these emotions and it turns into fun. I’m very touched by the teens. Who in their teens wants to go to a grief camp? But they come, make friends and now with social media, they can stay in touch. It becomes quite a gift. And I marvel at the kids that come as campers and come back as counselors.
Q. That happens often?
A.Yes, it does. And truthfully, it’s the kids who kicked and screamed when they came to camp … A lot of them are still continuing to heal from sadness that they had losing a loved one when they were younger, but they are giving back. On so many levels, there are so many beautiful things to witness.
Q. What are your hopes for the future of Camp Erin?
A.I think that no child should grieve alone. I really believe that and live that. My hope and my wish is that there are Camp Erins everywhere.
At the same time, as we figure out how to reach more kids, we must recognize that grief is important to discuss and to support on all levels and to sometimes just be a good listener and just be somebody who gives good hugs. That, in and of itself, can go a long way.
In one study grieving parents ranked support groups and psychics as the most helpful in coping with their grief. Photo courtesy of Yeshi Kangrang.
An expert on grief says bereaved parents shouldn’t discount the benefits
One of the most difficult aspects of dealing with the death of a loved one is its finality. Surviving family members may have great difficulty accepting the fact that they will never speak with their loved one again.
Consequently, some bereaved individuals decide to contact a medium. Mediums claim that they can receive messages from deceased loved ones, and act as a channel between people who have died and loved ones who are still alive.
It’s easy to make fun of those who claim to talk to the dead and the people who call on them. Comedian John Oliver laid out plenty of reasons in his February 2019 segment on “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.”
Mediums may appear to make wild — or slightly educated — guesses. In one case aired on NBC’s Today show a medium suggested that fishing was an important hobby for former NBC anchor Matt Lauer. Oliver later revealed that information was easy to find with a simple Google search looking for information about Lauer and his deceased father.
And they can be wrong — and hurtful. While in captivity, Amanda Berry, a teen who was kidnapped and helped captive for a decade, watched in horror as a psychic on The Montel Williams Show told her mother that she was dead. Williams later apologized, but Berry’s mother died believing her daughter was no longer living.
In this 20-minute segment, Oliver says mediums are simply “ventriloquizing the dead” and part of a “vast underworld of unscrupulous vultures.”
Camille Wortman, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Stony Brook University, agrees that the world of psychics and mediums is rife with con artists.
But in her decades-long work with grieving people, she sees another side to the story. A study, which backs up her own experience working with the bereaved, shows that mediums and psychics also can help grieving people — even more than therapists, grief counselors and clergy.
Wortman believes that destigmatizing the topic of visiting with mediums could help bereaved parents recognize that even just one or two sessions could play a big role in their healing.
Wortman considers herself a John Oliver fan. But, she said, “for the sake of entertainment, he put material out there that can be very damaging.”
‘I can’t wait to tell you. I went to a medium’
Wortman is a longtime expert on grief and bereavement with a special focus on how people react to the sudden and traumatic death of a loved one. Her interest in the grief process started, she said, at the age of four when her father died.
Bereavement expert Camille Wortman says her experience with parents left her very interested in grief and very driven to understand more.
“Nobody ever talked about it. Nobody dealt with it on an overt level,” she said. “It left me very interested and very driven to understand more.”
Much of Wortman’s work has been with bereaved parents. And, in her work, she began to notice that many of them visited with a medium. Wortman had no feelings or beliefs about mediums, but the parents talked of very positive outcomes.
Consider the case of Joan, a friend of Wortman’s. Joan’s college-aged son, David, was murdered on his way home from soccer practice. Wortman was there to help her during those early days, connecting her with a therapist. But the mother’s pain was still raw, even a couple of years later.
Wortman, however, noticed a big change one day during a phone call. “For the first time, Joan’s voice sounded different,” she said. “There was a little bit of an upnote to her voice. I wondered what was going on. She said, ‘Camille, I can’t wait to tell you. I went to a medium.’”
Joan told Wortman that during the session, the medium immediately said David wanted to see his wallet, which only Joan knew she’d been carrying in her purse since the day he died. Among other details, the medium also knew that David had a tattoo on his foot with two wings and that his favorite food was sauerkraut.
And, finally, as the session wrapped up, the medium told her David wanted to tell her one more thing: “‘Don’t worry. You’ll always be my number one girl.” It was something David would tell his mom before he’d go on a date.
“This encounter with the medium jump-started her healing, which was going nowhere,” Wortman said. “And she is gradually moving in a positive direction in terms of moving forward with her life. I’ve noticed that of many parents.”
Wortman said she’s heard many stories like Joan’s. “The one thing I am struck by is what a powerful effect it has and how immediate those effects are,” she said.
What the research says
Research backs up Wortman’s discussions with Joan and other grieving parents. A 2012 study, described in the book “Devastating Losses: How Parents Cope With the Death of a Child to Suicide or Drugs,” found that grieving parents ranked support groups and psychics as the most helpful in their grief, followed by grief counselors; psychologists, social workers and psychiatrists, and members of the clergy.
In the study, about 30 percent of parents visited with psychics during the first four years after their child died.
Another 2014 study also found that grieving people reported lower levels of grief after a reading when compared to a visit with a mental health professional.
Wortman surmises that a conversation with a medium can be helpful because it addresses an underlying worry for a grieving parent that a traditional therapist can’t address: Is their child really gone?
“It conveys that their child still exists in some form,” she said. “That’s terribly important. And it conveys that the child is OK. The child is not hurting, not calling out for them. This enables them to put more attention on other important aspects of their life, such as their marriage, their other children, and their job.”
If you’re considering consulting with a medium after the death of a child, Wortman has some tips.
Ask around
If you know other bereaved parents who have had an experience with a medium, talk to them about it, she said. Learn about how a reading may have helped or hurt.
Don’t fall for a scam
Don’t fall for somebody who is out to simply get your money. “Give it full consideration, but be careful how you go about it,” she said.
Some therapists are critical of mediums, but others see the benefits, Wortman said. “Certainly, we need a therapist who does not sit in judgment of mediums and who can have empathy for the reasons a person might go to a medium and can help the person understand the impact of it,” Wortman said.
“They can help you process it,” she said. “And that’s really terribly important.”
A leading expert in child death investigations talks about his unlikely career.
A parent’s response to grief comes in many forms. And, after decades as a medical examiner, Dr. Thomas Andrew, among the country’s leading experts on child death, knows all about that.
Andrew is New Hampshire’s former chief medical examiner and spent decades conducting autopsies and describing to loved ones, often parents, about why somebody died.
Some are angry. Unlike in television crime shows, autopsies often don’t uncover an exact cause of death. In the case of one 15-month-old, however, Andrew did. An immune disorder that led to a widespread infection killed the child. But the parents, recent Russian immigrants who didn’t understand IVs and technology, didn’t believe it.
“They were convinced the child was killed by some sort of fluid mismanagement in the hospital,” Andrew said. “What I was trying to get across to them, which was hugely important, is that it’s a genetic disease. They needed genetic counseling. They need to strongly consider family planning going forward, but they were having none of it.”
In other cases, from the depths of their grief, they find unbelievable kindness. Andrew still gets emotional talking about the case of a seven-year-old boy who died during a pick-up basketball game. Andrew’s autopsy revealed that the boy had an undiagnosed congenital heart condition.
“When I called his father, and I explained what the findings were, he said, ‘Doc, I don’t know how you do this day after day,’ and he said, ‘How are you doing?’” Andrew remembers. “I just fell off my chair. Even as I tell the story now, I can’t believe he found the strength to ask that question. I just wanted to say, ‘Are you kidding buddy? Don’t think about me.’ That was an amazing, amazing experience.”
In his decades talking to mourning parents, “if you can imagine everything in between those two extremes,” he said, “I’ve seen it.”
An unlikely move
Andrew didn’t set out to spend his career analyzing why somebody died. It began with the goal of helping young people live. Fresh out of medical school, Andrew worked as a pediatrician — and loved parts of it, especially interacting with the kids.
“They bring so much to the table,” he said. “They are such intellectual sponges and are really curious about everything.”
But he didn’t enjoy the frenzied daily pace of ear checks and camp physicals. “I’m a plodder by nature,” he said. “I like to look at things from many different angles, and that didn’t fit with that model.”
At the same time, the cases that really engaged his intellect as a pediatrician were those that included aspects of forensic medicine, such as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, consumer product safety issues and incidents of neglect.
Forensic medicine wasn’t a new topic for him. In medical school, a series of lectures in a basic pathology class captivated him and, as a senior, he completed a pathology rotation. Eventually, he made the switch to forensics.
Trying to answer, ‘Why?’
The job shifted from dealing daily with the living to studying the dead and explaining to their loved ones why they died. Andrew’s career took him from Ohio to New York City and, in 1997, to New Hampshire. Before retiring in 2017, he had conducted more than 5,200 autopsies to explain a sudden, unexpected or violent death.
And, with his training and work as a pediatrician, he carved out what he calls “a bit of a niche” in child deaths, focusing some of his writings on the topic. Today, Andrew’s White Mountain Forensic Consulting Services specializes in reviewing medical records and autopsies and testifying about deaths in criminal and civil cases.
Throughout his career, there was a common frustration: He couldn’t uncover why a child had died, yet he knew a family was desperate for answers.
In New Hampshire, parents often had two questions: Why did my baby die? And will this happen to my next one? They were queries that Andrew, many times, couldn’t fully answer.
But, despite their anguish and a lack of clear-cut answers, he said, it’s critical for medical examiners to be intellectually honest with families.
“To feel like you haven’t helped that family is a really empty and desolate feeling, but there is nothing crueler than a kind lie,” he said. “You’ve got to be totally honest with people when you don’t know those answers.”
And when they deliver their discoveries to families, medical examiners must be prepared to tailor their message to their audience. Empathy, he said, is critical in every conversation. If they can’t be sensitive to a specific family’s needs, they need to find a social worker or grief counselor who can. “They do more harm than good by being a bull in a china shop,” he said.
For families who seek answers, Andrew said their path doesn’t have to end with an inconclusive autopsy. He encourages parents to send their child’s case to researchers and groups, such as the Sudden Infant Death Syndrome Project, who are investigating particular health issues and causes of death.
“That’s what’s going to get answers sooner than later,” he said.
Finding the ‘trifecta’
These days, when he’s not testifying in a court case or reviewing medical records, Andrew is working on a master’s degree in divinity. He hopes to eventually become the full-time chaplain for the Daniel Webster Council of the Boy Scouts in New Hampshire. Both his faith and his involvement in Boy Scouts have provided a necessary relief from the seriousness of his day job.
And, after years of uncovering what bad decisions may have killed a person — whether it was drug abuse, dangerous driving or other unhealthy lifestyle choices — he’ll get to be on the front end of public health, providing tools for young people to help them make better decisions.
“Guiding these young people to make moral and ethical decisions, not only for their own sake, but the sake of others, it’s the trifecta,” he said. “I’ll get to do all these things that I love.”
47% of surveyed kids under age 18 believe their life will be harder than it will be for other people. Photo by Chinh Le Duc on Unsplash.
Evermore’s next few stories will have a “Back to School” theme focusing on both younger children and college-aged students. We are giving focus to siblings who have suffered the death of a brother or sister. Returning to school without their siblings can be painful reminder. Being with caring adults and peers who share their experience is extremely important. Bereaved parents are often so devastated by the death of their child, they can’t be there for their surviving children in the way they want to and need to be.
For centuries, children have grieved the death of a relative or friend. But, even just a couple of decades ago, there wasn’t really a field called “child bereavement” or a central organization to support the groups and individuals across the country who do the hard work to help kids in mourning.
To fill in the gaps, the National Alliance for Grieving Children formed nearly 25 years ago to create a network of people who provide services for kids who need them. And, today, the alliance’s membership has grown to 1,100. They include representatives from bereavement centers and hospices, along with social workers, child life specialists, school employees and others.
Vicki Jay, the alliance’s chief executive officer, said the lag to launch a bigger effort to support grieving children boils down, in part, to people’s discomfort with the topic.
“There are two natural things in life — birth and death,” Jay said. “We do everything in the world we can to plan for, anticipate and celebrate birth. And we, as a society, are not so eager to talk about the second topic. As a society, we haven’t done a lot of good work through the years of recognizing the importance of supporting people through that process.”
Vicki Jay, Chief Executive Officer.
What’s more, grieving children make adults uncomfortable. “We want to think kids are resilient,” she said. “They’ll be OK, and they’ll bounce back.”
In reality, she said, adults just don’t know what to do about kids who have experienced a death. “It’s easier to think that kids will be OK than trying to figure out how to help them,” Jay said. “Putting kids and grief in the same sentence makes a lot of people uncomfortable.”
But that’s what Jay and others at the alliance do on a daily basis. And their work has helped to uncover statistics that show that bereaved kids need help. Along with local grief support centers and the New York Life Foundation, the alliance conducted a national poll of 531 grieving children and teenagers, ages 18 and under, who were mourning the death of a parent or sibling.
The results, according to the alliance’s website, uncovered some sad realities:
86% of respondents said that they wish they had more time with their loved one, with 69% saying that they wish they could talk to their loved one, just one more time.
75% say the pervading emotion they currently feel is sadness, with feeling angry, alone, overwhelmed and worried being top other emotions.
73% said that they think about their loved one every day.
47% believe their life will be harder than it will be for other people.
46% cannot believe it is true.
Children also report trouble sleeping and concentrating on school work and that they’ve acted in ways that might not be healthy, according to the survey.
“When there is a death, I, as an adult, have a need to do something,” Jay said. “I call somebody. I cry. I pray. I research. I reach out. I make a casserole. I do something. And kids have that same need. Their tools are just different. We need to give them something to do that allows them to take that inside expression that they have and express it outwardly. … Our goal with kids is to give them the tools to get that inside stuff out.”
To help grieving kids, the alliance provides educational opportunities for the professionals who work with them and also connects children with services around the country. And, each November, it holds a National Childhood Bereavement Awareness Month to raise awareness about the needs of bereaved children.
Megan Lopez, National Program Director.
Jay, along with Megan Lopez, the alliance’s national program director, shared some tips for adults who are caring for grieving kids to help them understand their emotions. Here’s what they suggest.
#1 Talk about hard things
Adults often want to protect a child from hurtful or difficult-to-understand situations. But, when they do that, Jay said, they miss out on opportunities to have important talks about life and death. “We have multiple opportunities to help kids understand life and death and grief, and we need to capitalize on those,” she said. When those conversations take place, she said, you’re empowering them with information and knowledge.
#2 Expect unexpected reactions
Sobbing, deep sadness, exhaustion, changes in appetite and trouble sleeping are considered common reactions to grief. But, for kids, sometimes they just want to play or go back to school. “It doesn’t mean they’re not grieving,” Lopez said. “It means they’re a kid.”
#3 Look for change
Kids react to grief in any number of ways. “It looks like change for them,” Lopez said. “Maybe they were a very outgoing child before and now they’ve become more introverted. Maybe they were struggling with school and now they are really overachieving.”
What you’re looking for, she said, are changes to their typical behavior at home and school.
#4 Help them open up
It can be as simple as coloring a picture or playing with play dough together, Jay said. At night, she suggests, ask them what the best and worst thing is about their life. Find out what they’re excited and worried about.
Expect questions to come up months or years after the death as kids navigate through different developmental stages. “Give them multiple opportunities and modalities to help them express what’s inside and ask questions,” Jay said.
#5 Give them a safe space
Parents, of course, will want to ensure that children know they can go to them with questions. But adults also are grieving a loss. Lopez recommends providing other sources, who might be more removed from the family’s pain, where children can talk about their feelings. It might be a support group or with trusted friends.
“It’s about meeting the child where they are,” Lopez said. “Not giving them more information than they are ready to process, but being willing to keep having conversations. It’s not one and done.”
