This is the most traumatic podcast ever and iHeartRadio podcast. Chris Harrison and Lauren Zema coming to you today from a spectacular location. We couldn't be further from Austin, Texas.
Literally, I'm looking out at the ocean. I'm feeling blessed, shining, shimmer rings splendid, and I'm really happy after having just come off of a week about death.
We are in Maine for a very specific reason. We are in specifically Ognquit, Maine. Yes, Ogunquit, Maine, just out of Portland, Maine. We're up here because Elz has been up here working for a week. Explain to us why we're in Maine, why you were in Maine. I talked a little bit last week you weren't around, and some
Mariama Nunos was nice enough to fill in. I was explaining to everybody, Oh, you were talking about we were, of course, you know, I can't get through a week without talking about you, but just how special this week was, and I wanted you to tell this story. So I didn't fill anybody in. But now we can divulge where you have been and why we're in Maine.
Yes, So we have saved this podcast for today, which is actually National Grief Awareness Day. It's perfect timing. I've just come off of a week of volunteering at a camp, a summer camp for children who specifically have experienced a major loss in their lives, the loss of a parent, or of a sibling, or, if not a parent, their primary caregiver. This is a camp an organization, a nonprofit called Experience Camps. You will notice my voice is still gone.
After a week of screaming and yelling and laughing with kids NonStop from seven am till midnight every day, the voice has failed me again. But Experience Camps was incredible. They have multiple locations. I based on our schedules, was put at the camp in Maine, camp called Summerset Camp for Girls, so this was an all girls camp that Experienced Camps does week long camps for girls for boys,
and it was just incredible. Basically, how the camp works is that the idea is kids who have experienced major loss are going to be able to come to a place with other kids who have experienced major loss, and that's very rare for them. Right. I lost my dad when I was in college, and I was the first
person I knew who had experienced loss. So imagine if a child is nine years old or twelve years old, how few kids they know who have So they're able to come to this camp and be around other kids who have experienced loss, be comfortable in their grief, talk about their grief. Yes, laugh about their grief, because grief can't be funny. Can be funny. If we're not laughing,
we're crying, so it's good to laugh. And then the way it works is every single day we do something called a sharing circle with a grief specialist with the kids. That's a place where for about an hour they can talk about their grief, get a little bit of you know, counseling on their grief, advice and feedback and help and love. And then for the rest of the time it's camp. It's fun. It's fun. It's a place for them to escape.
They do activities. They do soccer and arts and crafts and water skiing and.
That drama as well theater.
Come on, okay, we'll get into it. I did teach drama every day. Very excitingly. The camp asked I what my experience was, and I said, I got nothing on sports on sports, but I do of acting. So they let me for the first time teach drama at the camp.
Every day, can I ask you? And it was wonderful before we jump into the nuts and bolts of this camp. And there are a many, many reasons why I love you. But oh god, I need to explain to everybody how this happened, because it is I wish it was more normal, but it's not normal what you did and how you found this camp. We're going to get involved in supporting this camp. And then all of a sudden came to me and said, I'm leaving for a week. I'm moving
to Maine because now I'm a camp counselor. Again, There's something that moves me about you is you don't just talk about something. You through everything at this Oh wow, how did this happen? How did you learn about Experience Camp?
Well?
Yeah, it is weird to be in your thirties and say to people this summer, I'm going to be a camp counselor. So I usually post about my dad. I lost my dad when I was in college. My little sister was also in college, and my brother was in high school. He had been sick, but then he had what they call the widow Maker heart attack. That's the big one, you're not getting through it. And so it was in many ways sudden, and you know, it broke my family and we have pulled through. There are so
many silver linings about grief. I think in many ways, grief made me a better person. I look back at the kid I was in high school in college and like I was kind of worse. It gives you wonderful perspective at a young age, and so over the years on Instagram, I have usually posted about my dad. On the anniversary of his death, I'll try to talk about what I've learned about grief this year. A takeaway because
grief is a process that's life long. It's always with you, and it's always changing, and the loss of someone you love deeply never leaves you, and that's okay. It also gives us wonderful again perspective on life and perspective on joy. So I got a message from a follower, and I've tried so hard to find this message. So if you were this person, please DM me again. A message from a follower that said, I know you always post about your dad. I feel like you need to know about
this camp, and they sent me info about Experience Camp. Said, oh, my gosh. My first reaction was, I wish I'd known about this camp sooner. The first camp was back in two thousand and nine, and honestly I would have pushed my little brother to go back then because we lost my dad in twenty ten, and so I reached out to the camp. I think they very gently at first, were like, I said, I'd love to be involved in some way, and they were like, so, yeah, would you
like to come see the camp for an afternoon? Would you like, like, what would you like to do something on zoom? What would you like to do? And I said, well, can I come be a counselor for a week? I think they were surprised, but very happy and welcoming, and they fit me into Maine, and I'm so grateful they did, because not only was it I mean I went into it, people call it the best week ever. I went into it hoping maybe I'll have a positive impact on one kid,
That's my hope. But instead I walked away thinking that was a perfect week. It couldn't have gone better. We laughed, we cried. I felt so close to these kids and it was wonderful.
I barely got to talk to you much because phone and you're not supposed to have your phone and all that, But let me just say when I did get a chance to talk to you and I could hear your horst voice, I could just tell the impact this camp, these kids, the other counselors were having on you. And it's almost as if you went to a camp as well. You just seem like a changed woman. And the best thing I heard from you, I've never been happier, you said.
And I know that sounds weird. You're at a grief camp and.
I don't even remember saying.
You're like, I'm just so happy, and you were kind of crying, you were laughing. It just seemed like such a beautiful experience. And when I saw you yesterday, because we finally just met up again as you were at this camp and I flew up here to Maine to meet you, you just had this glow about you.
Well, there's I've always felt there's something first of all, really special about all my love to you as my partner, but being around other women. So I think it's awesome that the camp does girls camps and boys camps. It's a very comfortable space and to be around like, look, first of all, a group of women gets ish done. This camp was so organized. Shout out to Rachel who was the director of the camp. So organized, so well run set up structurally for support and for joy there.
One of the camp chants was that was awesome and we would chant it for We did a talent show one.
Night and ran you hosted the talent show. Did that's Barbie?
Well, yes, we'll get into that. But but even if a bunk's talent, even if a bunks act didn't go super great, we chanted that was awesome because it was such a supportive place and everything everybody did was great, and it was just a place where like the power of being able to be comfortable about grief, and these kids talked about that that you know normally in their lives they even have to comfort adults about grief, like a kid will say, oh, my died, and an adult
tenses up and doesn't know what to say. And so for these kids to be able to be comfortable and also for the adults like we're often having I remember when I first started dating after my dad died. Look,
it's very normal people. A guy would say on a date, So what do your parents do and where do they live and then I have to say, well, you know, my mom lives in Chicago, and then where's your dad, Well, my dad's dead, and then they're like oh, and then you're like, no, it's fine, I'm fine, and really you're not fine, but you don't want to scare somebody off. So just to be comfortable in grief was really powerful. And then to like laugh, I got to give a
shout out to my bunk the colts. They were so special, my co counselors Heather and Cat and Carly, and our bunk campers. We had the triplets. We had Nellie and Ico and Cammy and Kia and Hayden and Daisy and Jaden and Judith, and they were so so wonderful. Was blessed to have kids who had been to camp before. To see the way that they that camp had affected them.
How.
Developed they were as eighth graders in their emotional intelligence was so wonderful, and like, at the end of the day, these are kids at camp. In the morning we would sometimes cry and laugh about our uh we had a lot of dead dads. Shout out to the Dead Dad's Club. And then late at night like they were farting and being silly and like practicing their act for the talent show and it was wonderful.
And it is and I want to express something you told me, because honestly, when I heard grief camp, I'm like, okay, So they get together for a week and just live in their grief and tell you it's like, no, it's a camp. Yes they are. Everyone has this shared grief, but this is a camp as well. And they're going water skiing and they're playing soccer and arts and crafts and all the camp things. It's just they have this one singular thing that unites them and made it so beautiful.
And honestly, I have tried over the years, like look, I did improv comedy for a long time, and that was what I taught this week at camp, improv comedy for my drama class. Thank you to Experience Camps for letting myself. Bays who's a wonderful Broadway star, and Beanie, who's an incredible actress. We got to kind of pilot the drama program. We each taught drama every single day, and I did improv comedy with the kids because improv
is about support. The one rule of improv is you don't say no you say yes, and and that was what camp was about too, and look, you gotta laugh about it. My bunk cracked me up. We had great conversations where like, look the triplets, their dad died of a widow maker too. I said, hey, hi, five for
a widow maker. You know, it happens. And we just had some really funny moments like I remember one of my campers shared that when she first found out her dad died, her mom told her at night, and her mom had just come back from a business trip and usually her mom would be her a teddy bear, and so she thought she was getting like a teddy bear from her mom's business trip, and she goes, I thought it was teddy bear time. I soon realized it was
not teddybear time. So these kids are able to laugh about it, and you know, that's what life's about, right, is about finding the joy. So I was so impressed with that. They were, you know, here to cry, here to laugh, and that's what connects us all, are those shared human emotions. So grief camp shouldn't be scary, and it wasn't at all.
And speaking of joy, as you brought many people joy at camp this week. As Barbie how did you get the moniker Barbie again?
My colts the bunk I had, so I don't even fully remember how it started. I had brought a pink hat to camp, and then another counselor I'd forgotten a fanny pack, and fanny packs are big at camp, and another counselor, Hannah, had an extra one and she let me wear her pink fanny pack. So I was wearing pink.
And then I think some the Barbie movie came up, and my voice doesn't sound like it now, but I was able to do a very good Hi Barbie, Hi Barbie, Hi Ken and the campers were like, oh my gosh, you sound just like her, and so they started calling me Barbie. And then I was showing them I really can do a very good walk on the tiptoes. How
Barbie never, you know, flattens her feet. And it grew and grew, and then my wonderful co counselor, Beanie, and I got asked to co host the talent show and Beanie goes, oh my gosh, what if you're like stereotypical Barbie and I'm weird Barbie. We're like yes, And then we had our three judges Jesse and Hannah and Bays and we said, what if they're Kens? So they were Kens, and one of them was, I'm Ken and my job
is Lake. I'm Ken and my job is bunk. Jesse runs the camp socials, so she was I'm Ken and my job is phone. And it was so wonderful. We got to be Barbie for all of camp. I've put some videos up on my social please check them out. And it was just hilarious because you know, listen, this talent show, like everything with Grief Camp, it isn't really about like a winner or a loser. So the Kens gave their job their feedback as Kens. I believe Hannah one. At one point one of the skits, the kids just
poured water on each other. They were just being silly. But late Ken said, I loved all the water and it was great. So yeah, I got to be Barbie. And I really I should be thanking Experience Camps for letting me just act and be so much.
I think I feel like I sent you off to camp.
It was great. What was it like to not talk to me for a week?
Unbearable?
Wow, thanks for saying that.
We really didn't get a chance to talk much, and I was I had to go to Well what made it even more difficult this week as I went to a friend's birthday that you obviously a mutual friend of ours. You were at camp and so I was the twenty ninth wheel at this wed.
It's about sugared.
At this birthday. Yeah, because we just talked about this on a podcast of you know, I thought those days were over.
Being the single friend.
But I went to Tucson to celebrate a friend's sixtieth birthday and everybody, of course, was couples, families, all that, and then there was me, but everybody welcome to me. And I tried to bring your energy of Barbie. I fell short, of course, But it is National Grief Awareness Day, which is why it's so apropos to have this discussion and dive into this and to help us out. Today we have a very special guest, Elsie. Why don't you introduce to our mystery guest today.
Oh my gosh. For the grand finale, we are going right to the source of Experienced Camps. Welcome to Jesse Moss, Senior marketing manager at Experience Camps. And after this past week, I would now say my very dear friend, borderline family member. It's weird how close you get at grief camp, isn't it. Jesse?
It's so true.
I just look at you and I will always see you as Barbie, So you are forever ingrained.
In my head.
That's funny because I do the same thing, but for very different Porson.
Was on her tiptoes for the Whole and Dire Talent Show and I was judged for it, and I was just like.
This girl is commited to the bit. Was it was incredible?
You were well, I should clarify yes, actually, maybe should have even introduced Jesse this way. Jesse was one of the judges. Jesse was phone Ken.
Oh yes, I've seen videos.
By the way, Jesse's job was phone okay, because she does all of these social media for experience. Camps has grown the TikTok too. I think almost one hundred and thirty thousand followers at this point. So incredible. So, Jesse, you do such great work. And we wanted to bring someone on from camp today because again today is National Grief Awareness Day, and wanted to bring in an expert to kind of help our audience with some takeaways on how to be more aware of Greek and also to
raise the awareness of camp. So first I wanted to ask you because I've noticed some of my friends have asked me this, Why is experience camps called experience camps?
It's a really, really great question. It actually started back in two thousand and nine as one program, a boys program in Maine, and it was at our now CEO's summer camp that she owned with her husband, and the name of the camp was Camp Manito and they just named it Manito Experience. They were going to have twenty nine kids there, twenty nine boys for a week. They
had never done it before. And then at the end of the week, they all looked at each other when the kids left and kind of had this like holy moment of just like what the hell did we just do? Did we break these children? Like what happened? And I think after that they just received so many messages being like this was the best thing that ever happened to me. I feel I'm not alone now. You changed my life.
And then they realized, like we need to keep going, and so they took it from Manitou Experience to broaden it. Now when they started opening new locations to be Experience Camps, because there were so many and this year we had twelve hundred kids, so up from twenty nine boys in Maine to over twelve hundred kids this summer.
And there's six states.
Wow, And are there even more applicants? Can you? Is there a max number we can take at this point?
Yeah, we had a big wait list this year for campers and for volunteers, especially because of TikTok. You know, so many people. I think grief is already such an isolating experience and so places like you know, social media, TikTok, Instagram, all these places that like can do a lot of harm, also can do a lot of good for people because they can realize they're not alone. And that's what our programs do. Like that is one of our primary goals.
So when people see it, they jump really quickly to want to be a part of it, because a lot of people in the real world aren't talking to them about their grief, aren't asking them questions, are aren't you know,
thoughtful and intentional. So the second they see even if it's a dark humor video, which is my favorite kind of video to make, or these dark humor grief videos, because that's just who I am but you know, a lot of people want to be a part of it, and I don't blame them, and we want to bring in as many people as we can, but we do have a wait list and we do have a limit just because of sizing. We aim to grow every year. But luckily we have a lot of digital programs that
we started sort of a silver lining during COVID. So we have like a grief camp in Minecraft for kids. So for all the kids that didn't get to go to physical camp, we you know, showed them what camp and Minecraft could look like. We have a program on roadblocks and really just the stat is and it's it's horrible, but the status six million kids will experience the death of a parent or sibling by the time they turn eighteen, and we served twelve hundred, which we're really excited about.
But how do we.
Reach those six million? And that's really the work we're trying to do well.
And the way you just said it's an isolating experience, I think that's where I love it being called Experience Camp, because to me, it is the grief experience, and it's complicated, it's layered, it's different and yet similar for everybody. And that was a beautiful thing about camp is that you connected with people who understand this experience and also realize that everybody's experiences are different too. I wanted to ask you about where to donate because you just said, you
know six million kids. Where can people donate so that we can help because they know experience. Camps is also looking to the future and potentially opening more locations if possible.
Yeah, because eight months ago Lauren and I didn't know this thing existed, and so now we are involved, but would love to get everybody else involved.
Yes, please, that would be great.
So we every child that comes through our doors pays zero dollars to attend our programs, every single program, and we will forever keep it that way. It is so important to us because kids are already dealing with so much after the death of someone in their life. We never ever ever want money to be the reason someone does not have access to our resources. But because it
is free, we do a lot of fundraising. So it actually cost us around twenty five hundred dollars per kid to send them to camp and then to have the programs that we offer throughout the year, which are like Camper reunions. We send them like a birthday postcard, we send them a holiday postcard, and we do like game show nights and things like that. You could donate on our website. It's Experience Caamps dot org slash donate. All the money goes, you know, to serving our kids and
making sure our programs are running and we're growing. Like I said, we started with you know, twenty something kids in Maine in two thousand and nine, twelve hundred kids this year, and we have no plans to stop growing. We're hoping to open more camps in the future and do more digital programs to reach those six million kids.
So, Jesse, we brought you on as an expert on many things from TikTok to grief. At this point, can you talk a little bit about your story how you got involved in Experienced Camps, because actually Jesse has an entertainment media like us. You even worked at EVE for a little while.
I did.
Yeah, I've been all over the place in my career. I always say I've lived like nine lives. But I came to Experience Camps after the death of my brother. His name was Jordan, and he died in twenty twelve by suicide and for so long, I didn't do anything.
I didn't talk to anyone. No one talked to me.
I didn't even really have a therapist, Like I just didn't know what to do, and the world told me I should be moving on, so I did. And it wasn't until twenty eighteen when someone told me about Experience Camps and I came as a volunteer that like my world was turned upside down. It was like some of the first moments where I said, you know, my brother died, this is how he died, this is who he was.
And people didn't give me that.
Like ooh, look that you usually get when somebody you know offers up information like that, and I just I sat there thinking like I need to live here forever, like I'm not leaving so hard to leave, and it's such a beautiful space and all of the people are amazing, and so I ended up applying for a full time job. This was in twenty eighteen, got hired as our national program manager, and it was it was incredible to sort of like flip the script on my life, not only
like in my career, but with my grief too. I went from being surrounded by nobody who had experienced grief to being around everybody who had experience grief, and that is like earth shattering an amazing way. It's hard and it's sad, and there's so much grief, but like there's
so much beauty in it too. And then in twenty twenty one, my mom died from a seizure, and having that experience was there are no words to explain the pain that came with that, but I will say being in this community, having experience camps, people around me like it was just different. It was just different. I felt seen,
I felt supportive. People asked me questions. You know, there's no like right thing to say or right thing to do, but it felt like people were doing the right things and that was huge for me.
It definitely seem like the counselors got as much, if not more, out of these camps than the kids dead. I know Lauren came back a changed woman, which almost so wonderful.
You almost feel selfish saying it, but I mean, yeah, it is a two way street because you go there as a counselor and many not all, but I would say do you know this to SUGGESSI I percent of counselors had experienced a loss as well. So see she's on it, she knows. This is why we needed an expert. But you go there and people had different amounts of time that had been since their loss. Maybe they had
different levels of therapy or help. But you, I think, just the the simple thing of being surrounded by other people who had experienced loss too. Like you said, I mean, I was in college when my dad died, so none of my but just none of my friends had had a loss at that point, and it was the first time. Still, at this point in my thirties, most people I know
still have both their parents. So to be around other people who'd experienced significant loss for the first time is going to make you feel seen for the first time. And I yeah, I almost felt selfish in that way. So I just kept trying to give as much as I could and left camp exhausted because I thought, I have to give more than I'm taking from this.
You're not selfish at all.
It's so common to hear people say that, Like I used to part of my job, you know, a few years ago at experience camps, was interviewing all the volunteers, and I'd be like, why do you want.
To do this time?
After time after time. I want to transform the lives of kids. I want to transform the lives of kids, and I would I would just sort of laugh to myself and like, they don't know, they don't know that they're going to leave and they're going to be the ones that are transformed. And then you know exactly what you're saying. People come home and they're like, I'm different,
and I feel seen, I feel hurt. You're just on a different wavelength when you've experienced the death of someone in your life, when you can be around people who are on that wavelength, it's just I got the chills thinking about it. It's just really incredible. So first pain and to purpose.
So many people are hearing about this for the first time, and if they have suffered through this loss themselves and they're listening to this, or they have a child, talk about the age group, how they can get involved when these camps start. Are they throughout the year? As you said, they're in six different states now, so kind of give folks hearing about this for the first time details.
Yeah, absolutely so.
Our application process for twenty twenty four will open on November first on our website Experience Camps dot Org. So the kids that we take are going into fourth grade in the summer through going into twelfth grade in the summer, So that comes out to like nine to seventeen ish. For volunteers, you just have to be nineteen. You don't have to have experienced the depth of anyone in your life like you can come and just be a good
person who wants to help. Those also open on November first, and then all of our camps are basically in August because we're using other camp facilities. We basically when their kids leave, we come in, so they all happen to be in August. So if you've got you know, a free week in August or this speaks to you definitely, you know, sign up for our newsletter, get your name in there on November first, because we fill it fast.
Now, Jesse, I'm gonna throw a big question at you. But having gone through loss yourself and also working at experienced camps and around loss for years now, today is National Grief Awareness Day, what do you wish people were more aware of about grief? How long do you have that turns out, it turns out our entire lives because the grief process is never over.
So but I'm ching that was gonna be one of my answers actually is you know a lot of people say, you know, a year later, like shouldn't you be moved on by now, like.
That was a year ago, or even like.
My brother died eleven years ago, and people are like, that's still effects you. That's something that like you deal with, that's a long time. A lot can happen in eleven years. But you're absolutely right, the grief process never ends. It's
with us for life. And sometimes I've heard people say, like it gets worse as time goes on because you're missing them more or things are happening in your life where they're not present for And I think another thing that I would love to share with with your audiences is like, while there's no right way to show up for someone after someone dies in their life, and there's no perfect thing to say, there are things better than
what you're probably currently going with. Like many of our kids say I'm sorry for your loss just doesn't work for them, you know, the classic like oh, I'm sorry for your loss, and then the kid has to be like it's okay or thanks, and they don't. They don't feel comfortable with that and even if you genuinely mean it, there's just some there are better things to say. You know, a lot of people will say something like let me
know if there's anything I could do for you. But after my mom died, I got that like ten times and I'm like, okay, Paul from high school. Oh, I'll be sure to call you if.
I need eggs.
There's no you know, like what am I going to do with that?
So I always tell people like, concrete things that you can do for someone are so important, Like you know you can ask them when you're ready. I would love to hear a story about your mom or I remember when you know we were kids, your mom did this, or as simple as hey, I'm going to go to the grocery store today. I'm going to get you eggs, milk, and butter, and if I don't care from you by three o'clock, I'll be at your house at three thirty.
Just really concrete things that you can do for people really go a long way and make the person who's grieving feel seen and understood rather than sort of isolated and confused.
Be proactive.
Yeah, I think a lot of what you're saying is a lot of response that people automatically go with like I'm sorry for your loss or what can I do to help? Puts the onus back on the grieving person. Like you said, then they have to comfort them and say oh, it's okay when it's not, or try it. They have to try to think of something or just say no, I don't need anything, when really they do.
Totally.
What about the timing of it, because Lorna and I were laughing, and I know some of the kids talked about this at camp. Look, locks and bagels are great that first week, the castle roles are wonderful.
But this I had one camper say, gosh, that first week we ate like kings because and then another iconic quote from our bunk, a camper goes man, people really thought edible arrangements were going to cure my grief, but to dark humor, Jesse, dark humor.
But to that joke, to that joke, is there something that we and I say we people that haven't experienced this and working with people who just lost somebody, is there a timing thing of week two, week three, week four, when the circus moves out of town and you are still sitting there with your grief.
Yeah, It's an amazing question. And I actually saw stat recently that four kids specifically who are grieving, after three months, pretty much everyone disappears from their life. And there's a couple of things you can do. I think we go back to what we had just been talking about. Grief never ends, and so what can you do knowing grief never ends? So here are some things that I'll tell people. Is one, put that person's birthday and the day that they died in your calendar. Put it in your calendar
and set it as a reoccurring calendar invite. So every year when that comes up, you know, I'm going to this person. Our lives get so busy, we're going to forget those days. Put it in your calendar, super important. And then the other thing is like a random Tuesday or a Sunday night, when like nothing is going on, reach out to that person, say something, ask for a story, tell them a story, interact with them, because those days, while the birthdays and the death ofversaries and three months
in and one month in, those are excruciating. So it was like a Sunday three years in, Like I have a friend who still texts me asking me for stories about my mom my mom died over two years ago.
So I think it's those.
Random days check in consistently, the birthday, the death of versary. And then we've heard that holidays are really hard for people, you know, especially if someone's missing at the table or they used to go to this person's house that died. Those days can be really hard. And then of course
Mother's Day, Father's Day. I always used to joke like National Siblings Day seems to be every month or is it just me watching all these people post pictures of their siblings, And I'm like, well, I know that, so there's days, but also it's like all the time.
Yeah, I think that's the griefs. Yeah, that's probably one
of the biggest things for me. Is and I actually remember telling you this, babe in our relationship is I like actively told you I want to talk about my dad because I think people assume, you know, even if even if they know you've had a loss, and I know they're coming from a place of trying to be sensitive, but if I bring up my dad, I've noticed friends will sort of you can physically see them tends up a little bit, get on edge, and then they don't know what to say, and and then you almost have
to say, look, I'm not trying to bring the mood down, like I want to talk about my dad. I want to still tell stories about him. If he was here, I would still be, you know, saying, oh, Dad, remember when you did this, So you don't want to lose those memories. I love that people still text you asking for stories about your mom. I would love it if somebody thought about my dad and my family, like send that textile, let's keep his memory alive.
And people are worried you're going to kind of, you know, rip that scabble.
They're worried they're going to upset you. Yeah, I think, Yeah.
It's interesting that you say that, and I've gotten that a lot, Like I don't want to make you sad. And my reaction is like I'm already yeah, you.
Know, my mom died.
I'm ready said, my mom literally died. I'm sorry, random friend, Like, you're not going to be more sad, and it exists in me. My grief is me. I am my grief, so like if that is a part of me, Like I can't get more sad than I already am. Like sure, maybe I'm having the best day ever. But if you text me asking me about my mom, it actually makes me happy because it feels like her memory is living on rather than people just ignoring it. So I think
that's really important. It's like we're already sad, don't worry about it.
It was interesting to hear some of the kids talk about the way that they talk about their parents. Some of them said that when they meet people, and I used to do this too, when they meet people for the first time, they actually pretend their parents is alive because they don't want to get into the complexity of explaining it to a new person, and then they'll just
end up comforting that new person. So yeah, I think one of the biggest takeaways too, is just that initial reaction, like you said, maybe instead of tensing up and saying, oh, I'm sorry for your loss, if someone tells you that, say hey, thanks for sharing that. Gosh, you know what was your dad's name or you know what was he like, and it really can just totally change not just the conversation, but a person's whole perception of you.
So yeah, well, you too have given people a lot of tools. So it is National Grief Day. So if you are listening to this podcast, and you know somebody who has lost somebody, reach out today, ask them for a story, ask them to tell you something about the person they lost, or you tell a story like we have given you the tools, do something today, make that a point and being National Grief Day before we let you go. Is there something you want to say to the masses and everybody listening today?
So much, Chris, so much.
But you know, I think grief is I know, grief is something that is going to happen to one hundred percent of us, one hundred percent. Not one person on this earth will be spared. So the sooner we start talking about it and making it less taboo and showing up for the people in our lives, the more comfortable will feel. It'll still be excruciating when it happens. It will still be the worst experience like you may ever
have in your life. But if we stop making grief so taboo and we can have those conversations and we can stop making those like ooh faces when someone tells us that, the better prepared we are for when it happens to us. So I think, like Chris said, like it's simple, It's really really simple. Like one step today take one step today. Send out a text, even if
it's just a heart I'm thinking of you. Send send that one tiny, tiny moment, and the sooner we're able to talk about it and make it less taboo, the better our world will really be.
Thank you so much, Jesse, thanks for your time. Again. It's experience camps dot org. You can learn more about the camps there. You can donate their follow Experience Camps on Instagram and TikTok and Jesse, in honor of you, I think we're just going to end this interview with one of your wonderfully dark humored tiktoks. We're going to play out you with the slogans that this summer you had kids come up with new slogans for grief camp. Thank you, Jesse, You're so welcome here.
They are asking kids new grief camp slogans Peep dying, wee vibe in.
Let's family, more friends die, laugh and love be all smiles for grieving child.
Damn it, years and overcoming fears came to grief, didn't want to leave, weeping sorrows, happy tomorrows obsessed. I think my favorite one was less family, more friends, looks.
That surprised me as someone who has not dealt with this like you have the laughter and the jokes and all that, because it's for for us, it's something that's so taboo we would not want to, you know, it'd be like tiptoeing on glass.
Well, one thing we all talked about at camp is how wild is it that grief is a guaranteed experience in every human being on this planet's life, and yet we are not educated about it in school. We are not not only not educated about how to experience grief ourselves,
but how to talk to someone who's experienced grief. There is no real discussion of grief in school, like you learn sex said, but you don't learn death ed and so experience CAM just bringing that awareness through their social through the camps itself, is really doing work that we should all be getting. And it was interesting for me because grief is again, it's always with us, and that's okay.
Like I want to remember my dad, and I think a takeaway I had from camp this week was I was surprised by how much I cried it in my mind. You know, it had been thirteen years since I lost my dad, and I have done a lot of healing I feel confident in saying that I'm not in the same place that I was when he first died, and I want to tell people that the phrase time heals and this too shall pass, like grief does get better, it does get easier. It is not this hopeless, endless
road of sadness. But I was reminded this week that it's important to still kind of think about that pain. I thought, I'm very healed and and I don't really have those big, deep cries that I used to have. But I was shocked in our sharing circles that we did every day this week, and in our campfires. We
had three campfires during the week. We're at campfire, you hear letters from some campers that they've written to their lost person, or even at the very last campfire, every single camper gets up and says who their person was
that they lost and maybe says something about them. I was surprised that I cried every single time when I started talking about my dad, and I won't, and it really made me realize that I need to make a little space to cry about him sometimes, like that's okay when someone is that that powerful of a force in your life, your parent, like You're still going to feel that sadness, and it's important and to feel that sadness. And I'm really grateful that Camp reminded me of that
this week. And loss is complicated.
You know.
We had people who had lost parents who were abusive, so maybe they aren't missing that person. Maybe that loss was in some ways a relief, but it's still painful. We had people who lost parents they'd never known, maybe
their parents died before they were ever born. But a beautiful thing about Camp was, no matter what your loss is, we respect the differences in grief, and we celebrate that some of those experiences that think qualities about those experiences are similar and bind us all and unite us all before we go.
I think we'd be remiss if you didn't tell us a quick story about your dad.
One story that I shared this week. We had a great activity in our sharing circles where the kids got given a blank puzzle and they could draw on the puzzle, and the idea was, what are the pieces of that person that you remember or that matter to you? What are pieces of the puzzle of grief interpreted how you want. I'm really bad at drawing, but I just drew music notes and I tried to draw stage, which was just a hater walk. My dad and I, like probably a
lot of people relate to driving their kids around. I know you've talked about how driving the kids, being their uber driver before they get their license, is such quality important time in the car where you kind of get them to yourself and you get to hear about their day and they're they're actually listening to you and a captive audience. My dad and I used to He would
pick me up. He was always the picker up er after you know, me being at a friend's house and we would listen to Frank Sinatra and we would talk, and Frank Sinatra was our thing and one of my favorite memories. I can't believe I have this memory, but when I was four, my dad took me to see Frank Sinatra. My first concert was Frank Sinatra, and I remember he picked me up and sat me on his lap so I could see. And the fact that like even that I was four years old and he was
taking the time to have that experience with me. I'm so grateful for it that I had a dad like that. I'm so grateful that even for the short amount of time I had him that I had a dad who showed me love and who taught me love, and you know, not everybody has that, and I saw that this week, So I'm very grateful.
A contest that Lauren will never lose to anyone I know. And that is when you asked the question what was your first concert? And she says, Frank Sinatra, it's pretty dope, walk away, you're dode.
Actually, if I may quote one of our campers to end this podcast, because it's relevant to that puzzle, that was the activity we made. Again, please donate to Experience Camps if you're able, reach out to me if you'd like more information about the camp, or to the camp themselves, or if you just want to talk about grief. I'd love to hear everybody's stories. But we had a camper who said, everybody in our bunk is important. You know, some of us are more quiet, some of us are louder.
She said, I'm not calling anybody out. We're different, but we are all an important piece of this puzzle, and we're perfect as we are, and our counselors are the glue that's holding this puzzle together. And she really sent me with that one saying that they were all perfect as they are. It was so beautiful because I thought these kids are learning more about more about grief. They're learning to love each other as flawed and as wonderful, and to celebrate each other. It was amazing.
Well, I love you, I'm proud of you. What an incredible week and you can go to experience camps dot org learn more about it. This is National Grief Awareness Day, So as we said while we were talking to Jesse, take a moment, reach out to those people today who have lost somebody and be proactive and just know that we're thinking about you as well. We love you, you are loved, and we will talk to you again very soon because we have a lot more to talk about.
Thanks for listening. Follow us on Instagram at the most Dramatic pod ever and make sure to write us a review and leave us five stars. I'll talk to you next time.