Finding Comfort Amid Grief

Gregory Gabriel’s South Los Angeles house always sported the best holiday decorations on the block: five plastic reindeer leading Santa across the lawn, snowflakes marching across the windows and lights winding around every bush in the yard.

With the 12-year-old gone, though, caught in the crossfire of a random shooting this summer, Christmas is just another day of raw pain for his family, whose unadorned home symbolizes the void left by the slaying.

But Saturday afternoon, as children shrieked over new toys at a holiday party thrown by the state-funded grief counseling group Loved Ones Victim Services, even Gregory’s mother was able to crack a smile.

“You don’t have to pretend when you’re here,” said Ella Crawford. “You smile when you can, you cry when you have to. You’re around people who understand how hard things are.”

For the mothers, fathers, grandparents and siblings left behind after a loved one has been murdered, the holidays can be the hardest time to cope. Gathering together 30 or so families for a Loved Ones Christmas party provides an extra layer of support beyond the weekly counseling sessions, said the Rev. Ferroll Robins, a police chaplain and the South Los Angeles agency’s director.

“They need to have something to make them smile, to give them some joy at such a difficult time of year,” Robins said. “This is to let them know that we care.”

Except for the occasional tears and sporadic flashes of anger at those who took their relatives’ lives, the partygoers appeared a cheerful, hug-prone group, fawning over the dozens of gift bags bulging with presents donated by the agency, businesses and City Councilman Martin Ludlow. It’s the children, the adults say, who need the help.

“He doesn’t show it, but this is definitely a comfort for him,” said Barbara Bales of her youngest son, 12-year-old Rory. Three years ago, a drunk driver killed his sister, 21-year-old Bekah Zask, in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Like other children touched by a death in the family, Rory has grown up too quickly, Bales said. To come to a Christmas party and get down on the ground to play with race cars is a chance for him to be a kid again.

Still, when asked what he wanted most for Christmas, the seventh-grader’s reply was uncharacteristic of most children his age.

“A good time,” he said, ducking his head shyly. “To see people be happy.”

As families piled into Loved Ones’ small storefront office near Baldwin Hills, conversation drowned out the carols streaming from a stereo perched near a tinsel-strewn Christmas tree.

There was talk of work, shopping and travel plans, but always the topic returned to the dead.

Adults need to be cheerful during the Christmas holidays for the sake of the children in the family, Bales said, but gatherings with other Loved Ones clients provide a welcome relief from the strain of feigning holiday cheer.

“People think you should get over it, that a few weeks or months is enough time to grieve,” Bales said. “But the pain lasts. And people here understand that.”