"Grief Camp is My Happy Place"
Where tears and cheers coexist.
I have come to describe my approach to grief as “Kitchen Sink Grieving.” I am willing to try anything, ready anything, listen to anything that has the possibility of bringing even a morsel of comfort at this point in my newfound widowhood. This is my current approach seven months into my newfound widowhood, and it was already my approach hours and days into this new life I was handed.
Three weeks after my wife died, I had already started to accumulate a small library of grief literature, both gifted to me and purchased for myself after finding a single person online saying “Hey this was helpful!” My brain fog was so thick and my attention span so shortened that I could only read about 1 - 5 pages at a time. Still, the real comfort was knowing I had resources and I wasn’t alone in navigating grief and I wasn’t the first 28-year-old widow in the world (even though many days it did and still does feel like that). Knowing how hungry I was to fill my metaphorical toolkit with resources, at that three-week mark a close friend texted me.
“I would like to float something that could potentially be good for you.”
This friend went on to describe that a former coworker of hers works at what is essentially a grief summer camp for kids. There is also a version that is a retreat for adults. It was described to me as “Fun activities mixed with group therapy. Like, a sharing circle but around a campfire.”
“Plz share the adult one",” I curtly responded. “I am using this time while I am mostly numb and in shock to keep setting up resources for myself so that when my numbness lifts and I am in the belly of the pit of depression I don’t have to start looking.”
My friend texted me this at 1:00pm. By 6:00pm, after reading over the website a single time, I had already 1. Decided I wanted to go and 2. Submitted my full application. It was early December, and the long weekend retreat wasn’t until the summer. Three weeks had already felt like a lifetime, so I had no way of knowing what state I would be in a whole six months later. All I knew was having events on my calendar to help give some semblance of structure to time was already proving helpful, so I marked my calendar and gave my future self a little gift.
The long days of early grief turned to long weeks, then months. Some days I am unsure how it happened, but suddenly those six months had passed. In that time I had gone back to work full time, packed my Subaru up with everything I had hibernated through the winter with at my parents’ house in Kansas, returned to New York City, returned to the apartment Megan and I had called home for years, converted a now-less-needed second bedroom office into a guest bedroom, resumed freelancing, reconnected with friends, created new bonds with fellow grievers, tripled my amount of weekly therapy, learned how to feed my cat wet food without gagging. My general life stamina increased little by little, and while I don’t think it will ever be what it used to be, I found myself operating at a level that I guess some would call my “new normal.” My days looked different than when I was in Kansas and couldn’t stand up without feeling faint and nauseous, but they also looked different than when Megan and I would have a marathon week with a basketball game, Broadway show, concert, dinner, and party back to back in one week. I was greatly living life week-to-week, day-to-day, unable to think or plan much more ahead. I shocked myself when I looked at the following weekend and saw a three-day block in my Google Calendar reading “GRIEF CAMP.”
I can confirm my original grief-induced shock and numbness had certainly gone away enough to feel absolute panic and horror in that moment. Funny enough, my fear was not at all based on signing up for something so grief-centric; at this point, I am so deeply comfortable in grief that I feel more at peace talking about it than trying to pretend it isn’t in the room with me at all times. I was panicking about the fact that I signed up for something where I knew no one, and at almost 30 years old I was far more afraid about whether or not anyone in a group of 100+ strangers would like me than I was afraid about telling them my deepest feelings and darkest experiences. Sharing emotions and trauma? Easy. Making friends? Terrifying. And to top it all off, I would have to make new friends against the backdrop of a summer camp. My summer camps as a kid looked like me going to university campuses to take a month of intensive classes and stay in dorms, not sleep in bunks and have color war competitions. Again, terrifying. I used the provided packing list to pack my bags for an honest-to-God summer camp experience for the very first time and I told myself that if worst case scenario I didn’t connect with anyone, it would at least be a long weekend outside of New York City Summer Heat. The only thing that makes me more uncomfortable than meeting new people is heat, so off I went.
The retreat, hosted by Experience Camps, took place at a traditional summer camp in the Catskills about 2.5 hours outside the city. I drove myself out on a Friday morning and I arrived equipped with my low expectations but high openness and willingness to connect. The first activity I was guided toward was making a name necklace. I cut some string, sifted through letter beads, and made a quick accessory spotting the often shortened version of my name, “MAC.” I usually introduced myself to people with my full name, but if people here were about to hear about my grief, I figured we could skip some usual niceties and skip right to the nickname. I saw a fellow camper arrive wearing a t-shirt that said “Grief Camp is My Happy Place.” I hoped I could soon say the same.
I was awkward as hell in my first interactions. I saw that many people arriving knew other people, which resulted in me further retreating into a corner of the pavilion with others that seemed to not have preexisting friendships. I suddenly had lost all small talk skills. What was I supposed to ask people around me so that my first question out the gate wasn’t just “So who in your life died and irrevocably changed the meaning of your entire existence and course of your whole life????”
A few social skills came back to me and I asked others their names and where they were from or how their travel went. Without realizing it, I had already given myself a bit of a helping hand with conversation starters when I dressed myself at 7:00am that morning. I had thrown on my “EVERYONE WATCHES WOMEN’S SPORTS” t-shirt, one of the comfiest I own, to feel physically comfortable even if socially I was not. I started getting compliments on the shirt (Thanks!) questions about my sport of choice (Basketball!) and inquiries as to if I was an athlete myself (Oh god no!). My anxieties started to lift just in time for the first formal activity.
We gathered in the “Social Hall,” an old-school recreation space with an indoor basketball court, bleachers, and a stage all rolled into one as the program directors kicked off the weekend. After announcements, expectation setting, and ice breakers, our group of 110 adults aged 21+ was split into three big groups by last name and each group was sent off to a different location for a first grief-centered activity. My group stayed in the Social Hall to participate in a familiar activity where, standing in a circle, participants stepped into the circle if a statement shared related to them. After a few rounds of participants who stepped in sharing reflections, we would return to the neutral circle and start again. I participated in the first few rounds without any impulse to share; I was observing and listening to others and starting to learn names and stories.
Our activity leader started a new round with the prompt “Take a step in if there is a particular place and space you feel connected to your grief.” I softly laughed to myself and took a hearty step inside the circle we had created on the basketball court. I knew I would be sharing this round. When prompted, I raised my hand.
“Hi, my name is Mac. Ironically enough, a basketball game,” I shakily shared while gesturing around us. “My wife was a basketball player, and we spent so much time around a basketball court. I have started going back to games without her, and my grief is so strong anytime I am around the game. But I also feel so connected to her in that grief and in those spaces. So I guess right here.” I saw faces around me nodding, and people who had previously commented to me about my shirt started to put my puzzle pieces together. Mac - dead wife - basketball. The first layer of the trauma-onion peeled. (And if you’re new to my writing, I have a whole essay on my basketball-related grief.)
As we finished the activity, the other groups rejoined us to wait out a quick storm that had begun to roll overhead. A group of guys had found a basketball, as a group of guys often tends to do. I was standing on the sideline watching a game of Knockout starting to form. A couple of people I recognized from my previous sharing activity walked over to me. “Come join us,” they said. After a bit of coaxing (and reminding that I was not the athletic one), I said yes. I fought back tears the entire time, but I did it.
I won’t outline every moment of the weekend, but I will confirm that my worst fears were so far from wrong. Connections came so easily. I participated in a recurring small sharing circle of fellow widows. I quickly found people who had lost their loved ones in similar ways to how I lost Megan. I found others who were recent in their grief. As important as those grief-based connections were, I also found people I just got along with as friends period. I found fellow New Yorkers. I found people with a similar sick and twisted dark humor. I found other queer people. The unifying thread weaving through every conversation, no matter if we were talking about grief or not, is that we all just got it.
As I continued meeting fellow campers during camp activities and sharing activities, I started to realize something. I met fellow grievers my age, I met fellow widows. But I discovered that I was the only person at the entire camp that had lost a wife. At first, it may seem shocking that this was the case when looking at a group of 110 people. However, when you break it down, it really isn’t surprising to me. The majority of participants had lost a parent or a sibling. When it comes to spousal loss, as much as I forget this fact due to the communities I surround myself with, but the majority of people in the world with wives are actually men (shocking, I know). And women certainly outnumbered men at this retreat centered around grief processing and emotional connection. When you add up all these variables, what is left is myself representing a one-woman Dead Wife Club. Despite this, I never felt isolated in my party of one for a single moment.
I knew I had signed up to be in a grief-centered space for a weekend. What I hadn’t fully comprehended was the fact that I would be surrounded by people who made that same choice. Everyone in that space showed up ready to face death and the absolute mess it leaves behind, process what we may not have space to process in the “Real World,” and not shy away from the hard conversations. And everyone showed up to Camp wanting to do this in community with others.
In the “Real World,” not everyone knows how to react to your grief; at Grief Camp, fellow grievers know how to meet you exactly where you are. If you are struggling to breathe and get a sentence out, you are surrounded by the support you need. But also, if you want to celebrate your person and share a joyous memory, you have others to surround you in laughter and tell you how amazing your person sounds.
On the last night of Grief Camp, we had time to let loose, enjoy some adult beverages, and pump up some tunes on a portable speaker. At one point in the night, while standing around with a group of friends, we all perked up as we heard the beginning notes of Chappell Roan’s “HOT TO GO” start playing. The guy managing the playlist saw us light up, and ran over to us to join us in scream-singing the first verse. When the chorus arrived, without needing any coordination, our little corner all broke into the dance Chappell teaches audiences to go at her concerts to the song. It was pure joy.
But like all joyous moments in my life, the gut punch immediately hit. The last concert Megan got to attend was Chappell Roan this past October, and the last time I had done this dance in a crowd was with her. Chappell has had a meteoric rise in the time since Megan died, and it pains me so much that Megan hasn’t been around to see it. She would love seeing this group of previously strangers all knowing exactly what to do during the exact moment of this song.
We all continued dancing and singing. As the next chorus arrived, a thought that usually would have stayed in my head exploded out of the thought bubble and into my voice.
“THIS WAS THE LAST CONCERT MEGAN WENT TO BEFORE SHE DIED!!!!!”
My scream was a celebration. It was sharing a precious moment about the love of my life. I didn’t want to bring the mood of the room down; I wanted to bring Megan into the room. And my exclamation was met with that exact energy. My new friends broke into cheers. One friend threw her white claw in the air and yelled out “TO MEGAN!” Everyone else in our dancing corner followed.
“TO MEGAN!”
I could talk about my experience at Grief Camp for hours, and if you have read this far, you probably feel like I already have. But I will leave you with this reflection. At this point in my grief, interacting with new people has felt incredibly difficult. There is this feeling within me that because someone never knew Megan, they will never fully know me. I have felt withdrawn in my interactions with new people day-to-day, felt like I am only partially showing up in conversations. This weekend proved to me that there is another option.
I realized that just because someone is new in my life, that doesn’t mean that they can’t still meet Megan. I carry Megan with me every step I take at every moment; all I have to do is share her with others. The comfort of knowing I was surrounded by grievers meant that I was comfortable enough to open up and share Megan with new people, and once I opened that floodgate there was no closing it. I shared stories of Megan with everyone I met. I talked about who she was as a wife, as a sister, as a daughter as an aunt. Talked about her getting through law school in the pandemic and becoming an attorney. Talked about her being the driving force behind bringing Jackpot into our lives. Showed photos of our annual Halloween couple costumes (and her two years in a row being Jane Lynch characters). Talked about her wit, her humor, and her loyalty. By sharing Megan with my new friends, I was sharing myself. And I can’t wait to keep introducing her to everyone I meet.
Griefy Listen
Special edition of Griefy Recs! The day I drove out to Grief Camp was the release day of Charli XCX’s new album “BRAT.” I blasted the new synth-heavy tracks to which I have become accustomed to Charli providing me, earworm after earworm, occasionally turning down the volume dial when I realized my rearview mirror was vibrating from the subwoofer levels. My attention immediately locked in when the song “So I” began, as the ballad style was a departure from the previous tracks. Listening to the lyrics, I immediately recognized the song to be an ode to the late singer SOPHIE, a friend and mentor of Charli’s. I laughed to myself; I listen to Charli XCX to feel like a cool girl, not to be faced with grief!!!!!!! But alas, of course she gifted us all a Grief Song for me to take to Grief Camp. So I leave you with the chorus:
Always on my mind (Every day, every night)
Your star burns so bright (Why did I push you away?)
I was scared sometimes
You had a power like a lightning strike
When I'm on stage, sometimes I lie
Say that I like singing these songs you left behind
And I know you always said, "It's okay to cry"
So I know I can cry, I can cry, so I cry
Thanks for making it this far. I keep publishing these writings because I have heard from many of you that you get something out of it, be it comfort in your own grief or a view into my own process that I am not always good at verbalizing. I have always been a much better writer than speaker, after all. And a special hello and welcome to anyone joining here after our paths crossed at Camp! Much more to come.
xoxo,
President/ CEO of the Dead Wife Club
Great writing! I read about you on CNN and continued to this page to read more- thanks for sharing 🌸