Tears welled in his eyes as his sweet, pre-teen voice cracked, “Mamaw M died and then my friend died and now my other friend died! Plus, middle school is a lot different than elementary school! This year has just been hard and sad. I thought being a kid was supposed to be fun. This is the worst year ever, Mom!”

Sadness. Grief. Uncertainty.

Death is hard. Change is hard. The two often go hand-in-hand, especially during the holiday season, when kids are practically indoctrinated that winter holidays should be the highlight of their year, filled with brand new gifts, unlimited candy, and family traditions that make the eyes roll while their hearts burst with joy.

Just like being a kid is supposed to be fun, holidays are supposed to be fun. Holidays after the death of a loved one, however, are reminders that life is different now. Holidays highlight who is missing.

When someone is missing, sadness, grief, and uncertainty reappear year after year. It can be exhausting, especially if you are also grieving. You may grieve differently than the tween working to make meaning of multiples deaths and the new stress of middle school, and that’s OK. Everyone grieves differently and copes in their own way. 

Speaking to your children

Younger children often don’t have the verbal skills to express their grief and feelings. Instead, you might see their grief shown through an increased want for physical touch and reassurance, tantrums, regression, and the overall need to move their little bodies a lot! Caregivers can support young children by:

• Keeping the child’s routine as normal as holiday observations allow,
• Prioritizing one-on-one time with the child.
• Providing activities that promote physical movement. Keeping naptime in place and setting aside 20 minutes to play at the park are great ways to support a young, grieving child.

Older children who are grieving may approach holiday gatherings with a quiet, reflective spirit or they may share their feelings with any and every person they encounter, asking questions about death and dying, and talking very directly about the death. 

Caregivers can support older children by simply being present and allowing them to talk it out or sit with them in the silence. This crafty age group often find meaning in creating an art project or participating in rituals that honor the memory of their loved one. Drawing a picture, leaving an empty seat at the table, making a favorite recipe, or asking people to share their favorite memory are great ways for older children to process their grief throughout the holiday season.

The only thing more unpredictable than a teenager is a grieving teenager during the holidays. 

Teens are still learning how to cope with life in general, coping with grief is next level, especially when they are expected to show up, celebrate, and smile for the pictures. Caregivers can support grieving teens by acknowledging that it may be difficult to be around family and fostering their emerging sense of independence by working together to create expectations around holiday observations. 

Allowing teens to weigh in on when and how long they must be present, allowing them the freedom to leave and go to a friend's house when they need a break reinforces healthy coping skills as teens process their grief during this busy season.

An ongoing conversation

The holiday season may start the conversation about the grief in a child's life, but, in reality, it's an ongoing conversation. As children grow and develop physically and mentally, their conversations, understandings, and experiences of grief grow and develop too. Grief has no timeline, so if you, as a grown-up reading this, find tears welling up in your eyes and your voice cracking as you declare this is the worst time of year, know you are not broken or alone in your grief. Be gentle with yourself as you approach this holiday season. 

No matter if you are living with grief yourself, if this is your first year supporting a grieving child, or if grief has greeted every holiday in your recent memory, it's OK to miss the one who is still missing from your holidays because, no matter how many years have passed, death and change are still hard.

One day in 7^th grade, Emma came home especially upset about the cruel words hurled against her. The talented pre-teen picked up her ukulele and wrote a song.

I don't know what I'll do to brush off the dust.
You've really messed me up.
I don't know what I'll do to brush off the dust.
Don't you know, it’s mean to be mean.

Through music, Emma found the relief she desperately needed. Little did she know that song would one day be recorded in a professional studio and have its own music video.

Healing Through Music

Music is a passion for Emma. She plays five instruments and sings, but songwriting may be what she enjoys most.

“Writing music for me has been a big outlet. It helps me deal with a lot of issues,” said Emma in a recent interview with Cook Children’s via Zoom. “Sometimes it's hard to talk about things, but it's so much easier to write to get my feelings across.”

Emma is a long-time Cook Children’s patient. During one of her visits to the medical center several years ago, she stopped by the hospital’s Child Life Zone, which features a fully functional, industry standard recording studio. It was here she met recording studio producer Raymond Turner.

“Emma was one of those patients who could probably write a song every day,” Raymond said. “She had a great voice and played ukulele. So we started talking about the CD project, what it was going to be entitled, and why we wanted it to be called that.”

Each year, Raymond produces an album of songs written and/or performed by Cook Children’s patients. In 2018, the CD was called ‘We Rise’ and aimed to give patients a space to express their feelings about resiliency and overcoming hurdles. Raymond and Emma worked together to take her song, ‘Don’t You Know,’ from a simple tune she’d play from time to time, to a fully-produced track to be featured on the upcoming album.

“It took her a while to actually record it because we talked about every line,” Raymond explained. “I go, ‘Okay, what does that mean? Where did that come from?’ And I know her intent was really to shed light on what she had gone through and the pain of that, but also to let whoever that person was know that at this point, it's not going to affect her.”

Raymond and Emma’s shared goal was to make ‘Don’t You Know’ an empowering anthem to bring awareness to the issue of bullying. When ‘We Rise’ was released, Emma’s song was one of nine on the album. But the work wasn’t over yet. Soon, a new project began that would turn ‘Don’t You Know’ into a music video that would air on CLZ-TV, Cook Children’s 24/7 in-house TV network.

Bringing a song to life

Stella, 16, has been drawing ever since she can remember. She loves art, but wasn’t too keen on painting until she was stuck in a hospital bed at Cook Children’s.

During her stay, a resident artist with the Creative Artist in Residency Programme (CARPE) delivered a canvas and painting supplies to Stella’s room. The program, which focuses on therapeutic art, is designed to provide an artistic outlet to patients who may be feeling fear, anxiety or frustration due to their medical condition. Stella’s painting of her IV bags impressed the artist resident so much, she was invited to appear on CLZ-TV’s art show.

“I was sitting at my desk and I happened to look up and see this patient’s artwork on TV,” Raymond said. “I was like ‘That’s it, that’s the art.’ I knew I had to talk to her about this project.”

Stella eagerly agreed to help illustrate the music video for ‘Don’t You Know.’ She put Emma’s song on repeat and with the words and melody in her mind, got to work illustrating the featured character – a girl with brown hair and big blue eyes. It was a laborious process to draw the many different emotions portrayed in the song. After nearly a year of tedious work, Stella delivered the final artwork that would bring Emma’s song to life.

“I've never personally been bullied before, but whenever I listened to the song, it made sense. It definitely gave me a perspective and understanding of how bullying negatively affects people,” said Stella.

She hopes her art can help amplify the message that bullying is harmful and can leave lasting scars.

“If I could take her song, which I can tell how meaningful it is to (Emma), and do anything to enhance it, to give it a microphone or to make it shine, that would be enough for me,” said Stella. “It’s really satisfying to know that we’re leaving a mark on the world, even if I was a small part of it. It’s really comforting in a sense.”

Their combined efforts made for a first-of-its-kind music video for Cook Children’s. Though the gifted team in the Child Life Zone broadcast studio have made countless videos for CLZ-TV, never have two patients created both the music and the visuals. And even more intriguing, Emma and Stella never met until the project was complete and they were interviewed together via Zoom for this article.

“It’s been neat to see how patients who have never met can come together to work on the same project,” said Raymond. “You would have thought that Stella and Emma sat in a room together. There’s a seamlessness that you feel when you watch and listen.”

Despite their different experiences with bullying, both girls say they hope kids and parents alike can walk away from the video hearing the message loud and clear.

“I hope that people will be able to see the impact of bullying, because for me, it made me feel like I was nothing,” said Emma. “It made me feel like I was worthless and useless. Sometimes people forget that the person they're saying those things to have feelings, and what you say can be life changing.”