A House Where Death Is Not a Secret

When kids come together at Our House to work through their grief, they don’t talk about Mom or Dad having “passed on” or been “lost.” They talk about death and dying.

“We use real words here. Mommy wasn’t ‘sick.’ Mommy had cancer,” says Jo-Ann Lautman, founding director of the bereavement center in West L.A. As for “losing” someone, “That doesn’t work . . . there is no lost and found.”

Our House, tucked into a professional building on Sepulveda Boulevard, is designed to be a safe haven, a refuge for those for whom home has become a painful place. There’s a softly lighted living room, done up in red and plaid, with books and candy. Here, the grown-ups meet.

And there’s the kids’ room, with stuffed animals and colorful beanbag chairs. Here, children as young as 3 talk about aneurysms and AIDS, suicide and murder, about the mom or dad they’ll never see again, about lives turned upside-down.

On a recent afternoon, the staff brings kids from several bereavement groups together to share their thoughts with us. Their awful bond: Each had a parent who’d died within the last two years.

There are Caitlin Bernstein, 15, and her sister Rosemary, 10, whose dad died of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Malcolm Matt, 8, whose dad suffered a stroke. Ana Maria Ruano, 8, whose mother died of cancer. Jennifer Bloor, 8, sole survivor of a boating accident that killed her father and grandfather. Hank Wilkes, 16, whose dad died of congestive heart failure. Katie Purtill, 14, and her brother Tom, 12, whose dad died of kidney disease. Matthew Kelly, 8, and sister Sarabeth, 7, whose dad died of AIDS.

Some had first come to Our House reluctantly, scared or skeptical. But they needed to talk to other kids. As Hank says, “I felt I was different from my friends. So I’d kind of shut myself down. I kind of had a chip on my shoulder.”

Katie says her friends “really didn’t understand” what it was like to have a parent die. Her brother Tom adds, “You really have to experience it to understand it.” Several mention how friends whose parents have divorced said they understood. But, all agree, that’s not the same. What do you say to a new friend who asks, “Where’s your mom? I never see her.”

In the kids’ room, they make dream catchers to keep away bad dreams, share memories both good and bad, and explore any guilt they may feel--either about unresolved parent-child conflicts or of the “If only I had done this . . . “ kind. Others have known the sorrow and frustration of being rejected as an organ or bone marrow donor because they were too young.

“We want to help normalize the death experience,” says Hilary Cohen, a licensed clinical social worker and Our House executive director. “It’s normal to cry. It’s normal to be angry at that person who died. But our focus is about life. It’s about going on.”

Children have unique issues, such as fears about the other parent. Matthew says, “I always ask, what if you die? Where do I go?” He says his mother has arranged for a friend to take him and his sister should anything happen to her.

Death as a concept is hard for the very young to grasp. As one mother says, “They want their dad to be someplace like Cleveland.” One child in the group says, “It usually only happens on TV.”

For the first time, children are facing their own mortality. Their first hospital visit might have been to see the dying parent. Or they might have been barred from visiting because of their age.

While the kids meet in their room, adult groups, including one for young widows and widowers, explore their own issues in the living room. A surviving parent may be working out such nitty-gritty matters as carpool duty or playtime. If the partner was murdered, Cohen says, “You’re also dealing with the justice system and fear of retribution.”

Lautman, a former hospice volunteer who had also conducted bereavement groups for widowers with small children, and Cohen opened the nonprofit agency in late 1993. With an annual budget of $175,000, they depend on private and foundation funding to supplement sliding scale fees and to support free in-school programs, currently in Culver City.

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The Our House children are an insightful lot who have developed coping skills an adult would admire, juggling their own grief and their desire to protect the surviving parent. Some have to deal with parents who tried to shield them from death. One woman hadn’t told her child that the father had died, rather that he “was on a bus trip.” Another learned of her father’s death only when she was picked up at camp.

“We try very hard not to keep secrets from the kids,” Cohen says. They’re encouraged to share both the good and the bad about the dead parent. At first, the deceased is always flawless but, in time, “the saints start to fall out of heaven,” which is healthy.

In their circle, the youngsters pass a feathered “talking stick.” Those who take the stick may talk about anything. One boy told how he’d wished his dad dead and now he thinks he has the power to kill people.

They create stories by arranging cutouts on felt boards. One little girl placed a car on a coffin, explaining, “When my daddy died, we had to sell his car”--a traumatic event, as she’d loved riding with him.

Another healing device is a genie that will hear three wishes. One girl had been with her dad when he had a fatal asthma attack and had tried in vain to telephone her mother. Her wish? That she’d dialed 911.

The idea, Lautman says, is to make death “a sweet departure.”

“This is a choice,” she explains. “The death was not.” Through art, music and play, Cohen adds, the children find answers that give them comfort.

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On average, a child comes every other week for 18 months. On leaving Our House, each youngster is given a rough rock and a smooth rock, symbolic of life.

Some of the information the kids share is philosophical, some practical. If a child says her mom’s no longer there to tie her shoelaces, another may advise, “Get Velcro.”

Several shared the experience of “seeing” the dead parent--perhaps sitting in a favorite chair, watching TV. Entering eighth grade, says Caitlin, “I knew he was there, checking out the teachers . . . just as I was.”

Rosemary, who’d been seeing a therapist before coming to Our House, found that in a group “you realize that yours isn’t the only [situation] that’s the worst.” Still, Caitlin says, “Having a parent die is a painful and harsh reality check. We’re young and we’re supposed to be playing and having fun.”

The boating accident that killed her father is still vivid to Jennifer. Knocked unconscious, she came to seeing “my Dad’s head in the water and his whole head was red.”

Rosemary hated seeing her dad’s house sold--”That was my No. 1 memory of him. Now, most of his stuff is in storage.” Sometimes, she’s angry that her stepdad is taking her dad’s place with her mom and is quick to say, “With her, but not with me.”

* This weekly column chronicles the people and small moments that define life in Southern California. Reader suggestions are welcome.