By Adam Kramer
A telephone call to his Uncle Mitch and to his stepgrandmother to say goodbye was just what Logan Miller needed to help him move forward and put his anger aside. But the phone calls the 8-year-old Bayside resident made were not traditional calls.
The calls were just one of the many exercises used by the Center for HOPE at Schneider Children’s Hospital’s bereavement program that has helped Logan come to terms with the death of his uncle and stepgrandmother over the past year.
“I said goodbye, I miss you a lot and that I wish you didn’t die,” Logan told a news conference at the New Hyde Park Hospital announcing the center’s Camp Hope, a two-day camp for bereaved children. “It felt a little better and easier because I didn’t get to say goodbye. It helped me get away from my madness and talk about stuff.”
The camp will take place Sept. 28-29 at Camp De Wolf in Wadding River, L.I. and is looking for some 40 children from 7 to 14 years old to attend.
His uncle, Mitch Wallace, 34, was one of three Manhattan Supreme Court officers killed in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center. Just a few months after the attack Logan’s stepgrandmother, Arcie Wallace, died of lung disease.
“He keeps a lot inside. The center has been an important place for him to go talk with and be with other children who have had the same experience,” said Michelle Miller, Logan’s mother. “He was a little skeptical in the beginning and now he can’t wait to go back. He really opens up after the session.”
She said it is difficult for an adult to deal with the death of a loved one and the loss is magnified for an 8-year-old. Anything that helps them to communicate and express their feelings is positive.
Logan described his Uncle Mitch as one of his friends. He said they played catch together, went different places together and visited his ambulance station where he worked as a volunteer emergency medical technician.
“The first time around I didn’t think it would be so much fun,” Logan said, about going to the Center for Hope, “but then I loved it.”
The adult rituals and ways of dealing with the pain and grief associated with the loss of a loved one are not necessarily sufficient or even helpful to children and teenagers.
In an effort to meet the needs of children, Schneider Children’s Hospital, in conjunction with the Tennessee-based Baptist Memorial Health Care, created The Center for HOPE (Healing, Opportunity, Perseverance, Enlightenment).
Schneider’s center gives children the opportunity to explore and deal with their feelings of loss while enabling them to move forward in their lives.
Susan Thomas, bereavement coordinator at Schneider, said the goal of the center is to help children put their lives back on the right track. She said the program works to help families unite and come together to work through their grief and sorrow.
Thomas said many children do not share their feelings of loss and do not want to grieve in front of their parents because many feel the need to protect their mother or father. Many times, Thomas said, it is easier for children between 5 and 18 to open up to a peer.
Logan said it has been difficult to talk about what he is feeling with his friends at school because they have not had a similar experience. His best friend Jesse lost his grandmother, he said, but that was seven years ago when he was 1, which is “different.”
Meeting children who have gone through the same emotional struggle, said Thomas, is a powerful experience. There is an almost instant connection.
Another exercise used in the program is making a memory box in which each child puts something that reminds him or her of the person who died.
“Children have a physical relationship with their loved one,” Thomas said, “and we want to move it to a relationship with memories.”
Logan’s father, Brian, said it had pained him because he saw the difficulty his son was having trying to come to terms with the death of two people very close to the boy. The center has been a stress reducer for his family, he said.
“He helped me a lot,” Logan said about his uncle, “I miss him a lot.”
Reach reporter Adam Kramer by e-mail at Timesledgr@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 157.
