It’s natural for kids to express themselves through the creative arts. And painting, drawing, music, movement and drama have the added benefit of facilitating emotional healing after a death when words alone aren’t adequate. 

Linda Bradley, a registered art therapist and program coordinator for Center for Hospice Care Southeast CT, understands the healing power of creativity. She sees it every day in Hospice’s expressive arts programs focused on helping children and adolescents process grief in imaginative and therapeutic ways.

“Often younger children can’t find the words to express how they’re feeling,” Bradley says, “and this gives them other ways to express and act that out and will stimulate questions and responses from the adults who work with them about how they can put their thoughts and feelings into words.” 

Hospice offers a wide range of creative modalities Bradley explains, because, for example, a child who may not be into drawing, might better respond to music. Or perhaps working with puppets may help a kid express a different side of his or her grief than a movement activity. 

She notes that along with a team of five Hospice-trained volunteers, she facilitates all the activities with the exception of music sessions. 

“The String Theory School of Music in East Lyme comes up with instruments and do sing-a-longs with the children,” Bradley says. “They have been a wonderful part of our program.” 

Bradley’s enthusiasm can barely be contained for the newest offering in the expressive arts program — a vegetable garden within the existing Hospice “Healing Garden” for ages 5 to 12 that’s planted and maintained solely by the children. 

David Fairman, president of Eastern Connecticut Community Gardens Association, donated plants, gardening supplies and labor to the project. 

The kids have been working in the garden since late spring and wrapped up the harvesting season this fall. It is yet another way to give them the hope and healing needed to move forward in their grief. 

The children chose to name their garden the “Just for Kids Hospice Garden” and designed a sign, which will be placed in the garden this spring when they once again plant their new crop. 

Bradley recently gave the participants a questionnaire asking them how the garden helped them with their feelings about their loved one who had died. 

Among the answers were: “It helped me feel better because my dad would garden with me,” one said. 

“It’s a quiet place where I can think,” noted another. 

Another child said, “I feel calm and happy in the garden.” 

Sowing and reaping the benefits 

Miles is 9 years old and has been participating in the Hospice expressive arts program for several years. Rubin, Miles’ older brother, died when Miles was 4 years old. His older cousin also died about a year ago. 

Miles says what he likes best about the Hospice program overall is, “I like how you don’t have to really talk. It makes you feel good that you’re with other people who have had a loss.” 

He says his favorite thing about the vegetable garden was doing the planting and getting to bring home the vegetables and herbs they grew. 

“It was fun to do with other people,” he says. “I made friends with other kids (in the program).” 

Miles, who has one dog and two cats, adds that he also enjoys pet therapy. 

“They have dog therapy before we go to art therapy,” he explains. “We get to give the dogs treats and comb them.”

Miles’ dad, Jason Appleby adds, “Since we lost his brother, we have done every type of counseling group: individual, horses — the whole gamut — and the program at Hospice hands-down is the best for Miles." 

Appleby says it’s been very helpful to have someone his child can be comfortable with enabling him to process his grief in his own way.

“Linda and the staff are wonderful, between the art, music, dogs and the garden,” he says. “This has been an outlet for Miles, and also a way to get some understanding his mother and I couldn’t give him when his brother died four years ago because we were grieving ourselves.” 

Appleby also stresses how important it is for grieving children to have other children to talk to. 

“It’s one thing for us adults who understand, but to have other people your same age feeling the same pain is very gratifying,” he says. “Children speak to children in a way that adults can’t. To know you’re not alone, you’re not the only child that feels this way is very empowering.” 

Jack, 3, Paige, 6 and Owen, 7, have been in the expressive arts program since last January after their grandfather died on Christmas Eve. 

“They were very close to (my father),” their mother Jen Brayman says. “They would go out to breakfast together every week.” 

Brayman agrees with Appleby that connecting with other bereaved children is a key aspect of the Hospice program. 

“It gives them a chance to see other kids going through (grief),” she says. “Kids at school may not get what’s going on. And they may be shy about talking about it at school. But here they have to talk about it. It’s a good thing.” 

The program, she says, has “given my kids a chance to have somewhere to go and talk about their grandfather, to tell stories about him (to someone besides me), to keep his memory alive.” 

Closing the garden gate for the winter 

“We had a mini closing ceremony for the garden,” Bradley says. “I feel that rituals are very important, especially with the kids. We put together a kind of ‘thank you’ to the garden for what we learned about it — and for how much we learned about ourselves. 

“I read ‘Lifetimes: The beautiful way to explain death to children’ to the group,” she continues. “It included a passage about how gardens die, too. We then gathered everyone together to see how death had transformed our garden. 

“We stood in a semi-circle close to the garden beds and I asked all to hold hands and stand in silence as I read the ‘Garden Blessing,’ Bradley recalls. “We did a loud ‘Goodbye, garden!,’ locked the garden gate, and imagined what the other side of winter will bring us.” 

For the kids, she says, it’s ripe watermelons. And for the adults, Caprese salad.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Center for Hospice Care is at 227 Dunham St., Norwich. Expressive arts programs for children, adolescents and adults are free and open to anyone who has lost a loved one, even if the person wasn’t in Hospice care. More information is available online at hospicesect.org or by calling (860) 848-5699. Registration required.