Weekend with the kids

Gigs and I volunteered this weekend to facilitate at an overnight camp for grieving families. I am a regular volunteer with the Peace by Piece program, which is a support group for grieving kids. We meet twice per month, and we have the summer off, so it's really not a bad time commitment. I get so much out of participating there myself and have loved all the kids (OK most of them) I've had in group for the last 10 years. The group is a joint venture between Edmarc Hospice for Children and Jewish Family Services and the camp is put on by Edmarc. The kids have lost siblings or parents by every type of tragedy - illness, accident, suicide, etc. The parents are also provided opportunities to participate in adult groups focused on their children.

This was the first time Gigs participated in any direct activities with the children. He was wonderful as usual. Kids just love him.

For whatever reason, the demographics of the group were interesting, I thought. There was a high percentage of minority families and a significant number of multi-racial families, specifically. Many of the children I had not met. There were babies to snuggle, and toddlers with whom to giggle.

I felt in touch with one aspect of grief and it's been associated with this adoption process. Each time we've had a domestic opportunity arise, the infants, all four of them, have been bi-racial baby girls (two were twins). I tend to notice bi-racial little girls these days and wonder what all those other babies looked liked; the ones I loved before they were even born and for whom I have no faces to remember. I told Gigs several weeks ago that I was sad because I didn't have anything specific to put with my pain. I definitely feel grief and somehow it feels inappropriate, or at least complicated, when you've not even seen their faces. I wear pretty thin sometimes with the process seemingly failing time and time again and no where specific to focus the pain.