Healing hearts

Sixteen bereaved families spend a weekend in the woods and learn there is life after grief.

By LANE DeGREGORY

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 26, 2000

[Times photos: Stefanie Boyar] Desta Arthur and her daughter Jamelia, 4, both of Orlando, were at the bereavement camp with Desta’s sister, whose husband died of cancer earlier this year. “His words before he died were that he was going to bring everyone closer together, and he did,” Desta said. “When he took his last breath, we were all there.”

TAMPA -- They got to camp about sunset, carrying flashlights and fishing poles, swimsuits and sleeping bags, photographs and memories and faded honeymoon brochures. They wore comfortable clothes, cotton socks and sneakers. They walked slowly toward their cabins.

Sadness dragged them down, like extra duffel bags.

They would spend this weekend singing around a bonfire, roasting marshmallows in the moonlight, running in sack races, sharing stories, splashing in the lake. Arts and crafts, the director had said. Family time.

But these 16 families weren't whole.

Lung cancer had stolen Danny Cortes' dad in May, about two months before Diane Huson's husband died of pancreatic cancer. Sandy Lockhart lost the father of her 7-year-old son, Keith, and infant daughter, Kristen, to colon cancer.

An ambulance took away Christina Dye's mom in April. She never came home. Christina is 11. Sometimes, she and her big brother talk about Mommy Mina with their dad. But only the good stuff.

This weekend might be bad.

Melanie Hunter, center, is comforted by her son, Josh, 10, and daughter, Danyelle, 13, as she holds items to go in a memory box for her father during a memorial service at LifePath Hospice’s bereavement camp.

At the Tampa Bay Baptist Conference Center off Lake Magdalene Boulevard, concrete-block cabins squat in a grove of scraggly pines. Wooden docks rim a long, shady shore. Parking lots and picnic tables circle the fire ring.

About 9 p.m. Friday, after choosing their bunks and introducing themselves and their dead relatives, the campers picked their way through the trees. Metal folding chairs had been set around the campfire. A box of Kleenex had been stationed beneath every fourth chair.

Someone was strumming a guitar.

Lean on me, when you're not strong. I'll be your friend. I'll help you carry on. . . . A woman's voice sang alone at first, then a man joined in.

Christina's dad, Jim Dye, knew the words. But no way could he sing. Not now. Not this song. He hadn't had anyone to lean on for six months.

In the darkness, he sat silent.

Dye is 56. His moustache and mutton-chop sideburns are white in contrast to his thick, dark hair. He's a commercial artist who restores old cars on the weekends.

He adored Mina Musgrove for 15 years. "She was my soulmate," he said, grinding tears into both eyes. "We all miss her."

Christina's guidance counselor told Dye about LifePath Hospice's Family Grief Camp. Dye said he was handling everything, from making breakfast to meeting teachers to brushing Christina's white-blond hair. The kids seemed to be doing fine.

"And you?" the counselor had asked.

I'm okay, Dye answered. Well, it was hard. But he was handling it.

He worried that if he told anyone he was worried, if he asked for professional counseling, social workers might think he couldn't handle everything. He was terrified they might try to take away his kids. An irrational fear, maybe. But he kept refusing help.

But this is camp, the counselor had said.

Some of the families had suffered for years, dads dying in their living rooms, nurses coming and going, months of chemo. Others, like Dye, got knocks on their doors: Your love is dead.

But your life goes on.

That's why hospice workers started the camp last year. They help more than 700 families each day in the Tampa Bay area. They wanted to reach others in the community, show them ways out of their holes.

Christina's counselor paid the $25 fee for her family.

Friday night, Dye stared at the fire almost until it died. Then he walked his kids back to the cabin. That song was still playing in his head.

Ariel Cortes, 9, of Valrico leans on her mother, Jean Cortes, during the memorial service. Jean Cortes’ husband, Al, died earlier this year. “I haven’t even been able to turn football on TV yet. Too many Sundays spent watching games with Al.”

Saturday morning was more like summer than mid-October: warm and clear, almost hot. Sunbeams spiraled through the pine trees. Danny and Keith tossed water balloons.

Their moms sat on folding chairs in the shade.

"Do you ever say something silly about some show on TV, or make some comment about the kids or something, then turn and realize no one's beside you?" Jean Cortes asked, kicking the grass with her Keds.

Five months had blurred by since Al died in her arms. They had been married for 15 years. She was 35, too young to be a widow. She still felt him beside her, still wanted him next to her.

"It's not sex," she confided in her new friend. "It's talking over coffee in the morning. Listening to jazz on the radio. . . . "

"Putting the kids to bed together at night," Sandy Lockhart said.

"I haven't even been able to turn football on TV yet," Cortes said. "Too many Sundays spent watching games with Al."

While their children twirled Hula Hoops and tossed eggs and played tag, these young widows whispered questions only they could answer, asking each other things they didn't dare ask themselves:

How much can you discipline a 7-year-old boy whose dad died?

How can you work full time and be both parents and do a good job at anything?

How do you honor the past while pushing toward the future?

"How long should we wait before, you know . . . It's just that this is the first time I've been around another woman my age who has been through this. I want to know how you're handling it . . . the dating . . . you know."

"I don't know," Lockhart said, twisting her wedding ring. "I don't know if I'll ever be ready."

"I know."

Danny threw a yellow balloon long and low. Keith crushed it in the catch, soaking himself. Their moms laughed, glad for the diversion.

"Kids get over things. We dwell on them," Cortes said. "It's just . . . "

"Someone to talk to," Lockhart said. "Someone to listen."

During dinner, Jim Dye pulled out his wallet. He thumbed through shots of Christina in first grade, of John and an old car. He took another bite of corn dog.

"Got a bunch of 'em in here," he told the whole table.

Then he unfolded a faded Olan Mills portrait and plopped it on a paper napkin. "Mina," he said. "Back when I first met her."

The woman in the photo had wide blue eyes and a broad, even grin. She had teased and sprayed her long bangs. Her hair flipped just above her shoulders, the same white-blond as Christina's.

"She had a bleeding ulcer in her stomach. I didn't even know she was sick. I don't even remember if my last words to her were "I love you' or what," Dye said, slipping the memory back into its torn plastic sleeve.

Earlier that afternoon, in group counseling sessions and over art therapy projects, the campers had talked about guilt. They'd discussed doubt and anger, obligations and ordeals. Each family had decorated a cardboard box.

Mauve lace and sapphire stones adorned Mina's memories. Christina had cut cat faces from magazines. She had glued silver spangles on the sides.

"The kids seem to be handling this a lot better than me," Dye said. "I don't even try not to cry in front of them anymore. I told them I was going to. And I do.

"I just hope that we'll all be closer if we can get some of this grief out. Everyone here has so much to get over. Everyone works through it differently."

One mother, whose 15-year-old daughter died in a friend's back seat, is finding solace on school stages, warning against drunk driving. A woman who lost her husband to AIDS is helping others fight the disease. A widow whose husband had lung cancer is campaigning against cigarettes.

"And look at that woman, over there," Dye directed. He nudged his chin toward the thin blond holding her two children's hands. Even during relay races, the woman had stood apart on the sidelines, speaking to no one.

"Diane Huson," Dye said. "I think that's her name. She's hurting worse than me. And I'm bad. I wish I could say something to her, let her know I know. But what is there to say?"

They got to chapel about sunset Saturday, carrying cardboard cartons brightened with ribbons and beads. Metal folding chairs were set in a circle. A new box of Kleenex was stationed beneath every fourth chair.

Each family was supposed to take a turn. Step forward, the director had said. Explain what you put on your box this afternoon, what memories you will store inside.

"We want to know the person you came here to celebrate," she said.

Cortes showed three of Al's oil paintings. A mountain stream tumbling through purple peaks, bombs exploding over a rice field in Vietnam, an unfinished still life she keeps on an easel by her bed. "This is a picture of our wedding," she said. She held it up to the light, then dropped it into the dark box. Lockhart showed off Donnie's Air Force wings, a letter he wrote her the first time they were apart. She read letters he wrote Keith and Kristen, to help them remember him after he was gone.

Dye brought a bulletin from Mina's funeral. A photo of John riding a roller coaster. He said he wished he'd brought more. "This is the last day we did anything together as a family," he said, brandishing the Busch Gardens frame. "Of course, we didn't know it would be the last day."

He wrapped his right arm around Christina's slender shoulder, his left around John's. He leaned on his children.

Huson was second to last.

"A brochure from our honeymoon," she started, dropping the Jamaican travel leaflet into the glittery box. "Roland's gym membership card, his watch, his golf balls.

"His reading glasses, a card from my daughter Morgan, who is 5." Her voice trailed off, then disappeared. "I'm sorry," she said several long seconds later. "I don't know if I can do this."

She took a deep breath.

"Kevin wanted to put in a football because he and his dad always did Sunday game days together," she said. "Now there's no one around for that."

Kevin, who is 8, reached up and hugged his mom. He held her shaking hand all the way to their seats.

About 9 p.m., after everyone had slurped ice cream sundaes and rolled up their sleeping bags and cleaned out their cabins, Cortes gave Lockhart her phone number. She had promised Danny that Keith could come play.

Dye talked to Christina and John about their mother, about what she had meant to him, about how they would survive without her.

They had come here to deal with death.

First, they would deal with life.

As he was walking toward his car, leaving camp, Dye pulled a folded piece of paper from his well-worn wallet. He wrote his phone number. He handed it to Diane Huson.

He didn't say anything.

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