Anne Heros

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Ann Harros serves as the Executive Director of the center for Grieving Children, an organization that serves grieving children, teenagers, families and young adults with peer support, outreach and education. Thank you for coming in again.

Anne Heros:

Thank you. Good to be here.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You've now been doing this for, I guess this is your 31st year, right, with the center?

Anne Heros:

The center's 31st year, yes, they started in 89 or sorry, 80 87. I'm thinking of when I came to the United States. Sorry, 87 is when the center started and our founder Bill Hammonds started it because in his own life his only sister, who was a single mom and she was 39 and was diagnosed with terminal cancer and she had a nine year old daughter. So when his sister died he was devastated himself, but much less trying how to support his niece. And he looked around Portland at that time and there were some groups for adults. There was nothing for children. And he thought, you know, this was a real need. And around the same time he saw something, I believe it was on 2020 that just listed this new place that had opened out in Portland, Oregon called the Dougie center. And he thought, you know, that's what we need here in Portland. And he was a stockbroker. So he packed in his job, tapped into his savings, went over there to see what they were doing and then came back and adjusted what he had seen and created his own center. We were the third in the US So he made a really special effort to the model was Very important to him. The model was a family model which again, given that time back then, Kubler Ross was only beginning to write about grief. There was hardly anything getting written about children or even the acknowledgement that children grieved. So this was very important to him that it would be a family model where the whole family could come. But also what was important was the fact that it would be facilitated. These groups which are age appropriate, would be facilitated by people from the community who had gone through a 30 plus our training and then they themselves, volunteers would be supported by staff and you know, clinical consultants and all of that to make sure that this was, you know, as I said it was, it was a test back then. Obviously now going on 31 years later, a lot more has been written to in turn, you know, you know, actually confirm that this approach does, does work. So he had a great vision.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You are originally from Ireland, correct? Do they have things like this back there?

Anne Heros:

I was not. Again, you know, you don't really think about that at that time back then. I mean now they do, but it's not done. The way, you know, what I'm involved in is a very different kind of model, you know, there and in some other countries it either is a church related type model, but not something that's done by volunteers and may have, it may be a clinical model but nothing to the same degree as what we're involved in here. So it's, I think what we have here in the United States is pretty special. As I said, we were the third and there's now over 300 in those 31 years.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

What is the benefit of involving community members?

Anne Heros:

Well, it is, it's. It's to me, because I'm so much somebody who actually also benefited from attending this center. It is the fact that it is other people from the community. It is like a gift of unconditional love. That's the, the gift from like what I would see from being an adult and being aware of being the facilitators in my group. But the other magic is the fact that it is peers. You're going to have other people in your group who are your same age and therefore you're breaking down the walls of isolation. You're helping children to see that they are not alone. There are others experiencing the same kind of situation and that there's hope. There's other people there and they seem to be doing okay. I mean our program is a year round program so you could be the newest child in the group, but then you could also be aware of Another child who's there a couple of months. So it's giving you that sense that, wow, you know, each day you know this, I'm going to be okay. And I think that's pretty special.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

You benefited from this because of your daughter's death, correct?

Anne Heros:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And it seems as though it would be hard to know when one is grieving something that large, when or how to reach out for some people.

Anne Heros:

Well, I think that's where awareness of our existence is very important for me. I became aware of the center because they actually responded to the school because it was a sudden death. And that's how I became aware that they existed. And then also there was somebody in the school who actually volunteered at the center and I volunteered in the office at the school. I guess I had an ulterior motive because I wanted to keep an eye on my kids. Because you are very protective, particularly at very pivotal times like this, you are overly protective. And so I got to know her and she told me more about the center. And so it kind of was there in my mind that, you know, in a way, even though I had a lot of education behind me around children, because I was in education back in Ireland, but this aspect of a child's life, how could you make it through? And also for me as a parent, how could you make it through, through and be a healthy parent to. To parent these kids going forward?

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Your, your daughter was 12, she was 10.

Anne Heros:

And it was a sudden virus that attacked her. We did not realize that she was sick. We thought she had a stomach virus. So.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And she had. Has siblings?

Anne Heros:

Yes, she had, she had two brothers. She was the middle child. She was 10. Her brother was 11 going on 12 and her youngest one was 8. So she was, we used to joke and say she was the oreo or the white part in the cookie, you know what I mean? She just was the glue. She really was.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

So I also wonder. It would be devastating enough, I imagine, to lose a child, but then to continue to have to parent your other children.

Anne Heros:

Absolutely. It was a double edged sword in the sense that, you know, you really just wanted to curl up in bed and pull the covers over your head and come back out in months ahead. But you didn't have that luxury when you have got children to parent. And in that sense there's a bit of a saving grace in it too, that I had that, you know, that demand on me. I think the other thing for me was the fact that I was only here two years from Ireland, so I didn't really. I hadn't really built up that network yet of friends and obviously no family and whatever. So being able to reach out and find a place like this really helped. Helped me. But I mean, again, you know, they were boys, so again, a little different. But for me, it was a case of, well, you know what? This did not come with a rule book. You know, it's there. I'll try it. Because, you know, having, you know, as I say, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. I knew that this was a, as they're calling it now, an adverse childhood experience and to make, you know, having moved to a new country and to, you know, that. So you take these experiences that children experience throughout their lives, and some of them can be very, very traumatic, and it can severely impact, you know, the development of that. Of that child. So I was very aware of that. And so I knew I became a voracious reader to learn all that I could about how kids experience this. And as I said, you know, there wasn't a lot written, but the little bit that was out there I managed to. To access. And actually somebody from the community. One of the things that she did was she actually went to the library and got about six books and took them out and brought them and dropped them off and just left them there. But the challenge at that time is my ability to concentrate in those very early days was very small. So really, articles were something that I could really just concentrate on for a short amount of time and get some information from them. And there were some important, important pieces that I'd gleaned back then. And one of them was children saying how a bereaved parent, kind of idolized is the one that has died. And the two that are the ones that are left behind are kind of relegated. So that was something that I wanted to make sure, you know, as much as possible was not going to be felt by. By the kids. And also that you didn't become overly protective and not let them experience their childhood. And I have particular kind of moments when that piece that I picked up kind of came back to me very in front of me in the sense the first time was when my oldest boy got his driving license and he's driving off in the car with his brother. And it's kind of like I'm standing there looking at my future, just driving away in a car, and it's like, oh, my goodness. But again, you gotta hold back on that. The other one was when my older one came home from college and said he wanted to join the Marines. And I thought, oh, wow. Talk about wanting to hold yourself back and not want to wrap them in cotton wool, you know, but those are important things for me to know that you had to release and let your children experience the world in spite of the fact that it seems like your world has fallen apart. And how do you start to build some comfort and some assurity around what's going, going to happen, which, I mean, in the big picture, you've no control over, but in, in your naive way as your parenting, you think you can control it all. You know, at least I thought anyway.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

One of the things that I, over the years have become interested in as a doctor is that we never really let go of grief completely. Someone who was in our life that we lose is always with us in some capacity.

Anne Heros:

Absolutely.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And the more years I have been a doctor, the more I have seen that this. It goes on for decades, maybe forever.

Anne Heros:

It does, it does. And I think that's what's becoming. People are beginning to get that message now, which is, which is good because, you know, again, going back to Kubler Ross, she said there were four or five stages in grief, and people, I think maybe naively, we wanted to think, well, five stages and you were done and it was wrapped up in a bow and that was it. And of course it's not.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And not everybody goes through the stages, not only at the same pace, but in the same order, perhaps. And it makes it difficult, I think, for people who are trying to be helpful to know what to say or how to act.

Anne Heros:

Right, right. And again, going back to the work at the center, what we train our facilitators in is how to be reflective listeners. Because really it's about getting your voice back back. It's about hearing yourself, you know, think in a way and having another person reflect it back. It may not be the facilitator that reflects it back, but it could be another participant in the group. And that is so helpful. I know, you know, from the. Sometimes it felt like you could be going crazy. Right. So that can have its own aspect to it. And how do you normalize to a degree something that's happening to you and that it will be okay by certain supportive factors that are going to help you heal, whether it is, you know, physically making sure you're going to your doctor and you're staying healthy and you're getting that input and then doing all the right things for your body to, whether it is one on one counseling for a while, or in our case, you come to a group setting and experience meeting other people. Who are walking the walk. So you need to look at all of these aspects. You know, we do a piece on quadrants, but about your physical, your emotional, your spiritual health. Those are all aspects of an individual.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

It was just occurring to me sitting here now, and maybe I'm just slow on the uptake, but in a sense, you can be a grieving child, really, at any age. It is your, I believe, your inner child that is the most impacted by loss.

Anne Heros:

Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And I have spoken to adults who've told me that they've benefited from going to the center for grieving children because they lost a parent at an early age or a sibling at an early age, and they were adults that went to the center. So it's interesting that you are absolutely serving an entire spectrum of physical ages, but you're still dealing with the emotional impact on the inner child.

Anne Heros:

Yes. And particularly our volunteers, I think, are the ones who would speak to that, because people will say, oh, to be a volunteer, do I have to have experienced a death in a prior life, an earlier part of your life? And we kind of say, no, there are different things that can happen in your life that will impact your emotional well being. And so that's kind of a hidden gift, I think, that happens at the center. And probably part of the reason our volunteers stay for a long period of time is that is what they're getting from that, because they wish the center would have been there when they'd had that experience. So it's an inner part of all that's happening at the center. I mean, for us, our groups are, as I said, a family model. But as we were working through the years, the children's grief journey happens in age developmental stages, but the adults experience it differently. They're in this timeline. And so when the children were ready to leave the center, the adults were saying, oh, I really still could do it. A group, you know. So as the center got more, I guess, sustained in its work and its support, it started adding extra adult groups. And also at that time, research was showing that the better the adult does, the better the child does. So even though we might have added a bereaved parents group or a widow widower's partners group, we were still indirectly helping, helping children.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I have a patient who is a writer and puts things out on his blog. So I feel comfortable talking about his grief because he's very open about it. He's an older gentleman and his child died, I believe, when she was in her late teens and she would have been my age, which was something that Struck him, I believe, within the last year or so that this wasn't a child. That was still whatever age she was. This is an entire life that had been lost.

Anne Heros:

Exactly. Yes.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And as a writer, he's been able to process this. One of the things that has come up. So that's sort of one thing. And I'm guessing you might have had similar thoughts on that because your daughter is my sister's age.

Anne Heros:

Exactly.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

They knew each other, Yarmouth. So there's that piece.

Anne Heros:

Yeah.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And then there's also. Which is a second piece.

Anne Heros:

The.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

The fact that men and women even process death differently. As a father, I think he processed death differently than his then wife. What are your thoughts?

Anne Heros:

Yes, you have. I try to explain to people that, you know, that horrific pain that you have in the beginning subsides. It gets easier. It gets easier. And then there are, you know, a long period of time. You mightn't think about it at all as having happened to you. But then something in a life event, an incident of some kind, and the flash comes back, you know, whether it is, you know, the day my son was getting married or then you're my daughter's best friend getting married, that was a hard day for me because again, you're thinking, wow, that's a life event I will not experience with her. And then the same when my son had his first child, which turned out to be a girl. So those are all things that. Yes, but they don't bring you down. They don't bring you back to where you were. At least I feel that's because I've done so much work and I guess embrace sounds like you. You welcome to know I trade places in the morning. But it's, it's, it's all the time processing. You know, you're a human being. You are a process. You know, you cannot stand still. You're not a. You're not a. You're just going to experience these things. And some people, it will bring them back to a. You know, maybe it will be the thing that will pull the rug from under them. And so therefore, then they need to get the support. And that's part of the reason the center does outreach to schools. Because we, you know, we're asking teachers on the front line to help these students, to do something for these students that in turn might trigger in their lives something that happened. And there they've got to function and be there and support the kids. And yet inside this flashback is happening for them, for their own loss. So that's why we also behind the scenes try to, you know, want to support the teachers because they're the ones who are going to be there day in and day out to work with the students.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

And is there a difference between the way that men and women process grief? Is it, can you easily go along gender lines or is it just every individual is different?

Anne Heros:

I think there's definitely an individual part of it, but I think there's different permissions that are given to the genders. You know, for men there is that piece about crying makes you look vulnerable, you know, being in touch with your feelings, you know, you're expected to be strong. You know the old sayings of, you know, well, now you're the man of the house. Or when the father dies and mom is left behind. And I mean, what a, what a ridiculous thing to say to a 10 year old boy and mom is 30 something or 40 and now to the 10 year old, you're the man of the house. So those are unfair expectations that are put there. Girls on the other side of it are kind of given that permission to cry and probably do experience more. Their feelings are very much, I think, to the forefront in a lot of cases. But then there's other things that they're not given permission to do, like to be angry, you know, to be physical. You know, that's why we at the center have a, we have a room where you can be rambunctious and be safe and you know, being physical, whatever that might be, that, that's an important thing too for, for a girl to have because these, these are all things that are healthy for your body, but they have to be done in a safe, in a safe way. And you know, we will have, you know, male volunteers, you know, with the center who will say, you know, I was, everything was taken away. We were not allowed talk about it. Well, same was happened for girls too. Thankfully. Nowadays we're trying to, you know, educate and help people understand. I know we had one experience where this volunteer, having gone through our training, started to reflect on the death of his own mom and how his dad kind of managed to, or didn't manage to kind of parent the family and how it created a fracture really in their relationship later. And so that he hadn't seen his dad in a long time. So having gone through the training, there was that light bulb that went on that had him thinking, I need to go back. And so he booked a flight to go visit his father. And so there was that, that reconnection because he began to see it from his father's side and his father trying to do the best, you know, so that was a nice, nice story to hear.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Anything that you would like our listeners to know about the center for Grieving children? Anything that you think is particularly interesting or that you'd like to share?

Anne Heros:

I think sometimes when people hear the name grieving children that they think it's a sad place. And that is not. Yes. What brings people there can be sad, but children in a lot of cases experience for the first time that it's okay to be happy again because there's so much sadness in a house. You know, how can you be happy again? How can you. By coming to the center. There's those opportunities to have those conversations. And I think the other piece is that, you know, we provide a lot of services. So I encourage people to go to our website and see all the work that we do because I think that's one of the pieces people will say to me, wow, I didn't know that you did so much. And I think one of the other pieces is that, you know, we are there. Okay, we're not there 24 7, but we are there either on the phone or on the website to answer your questions and help you. You know, there's an awful lot of work that we do that does not mean you actually physically come inside the walls of the Centre. But we do a lot of work with a lot of different kinds of populations. We have a bigger refugee and immigrant program. We have a tender living care program where we work with families. And so we're dealing with a life, life threatening illness. And then of course, there's our bereavement program.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

I appreciate all the work that you've done over the last several decades now. Must be a little hard to believe.

Anne Heros:

It is hard to believe actually, that there's more behind me than there is ahead of me.

Dr. Lisa Belisle:

Well, I'm glad you're still here. A few decades ahead of you still. I've been speaking with Ann Harris, who serves as the executive director of the center for Grieving Children, an organization that serves grieving children, teenagers, families and young adults with peer support, outreach and education. Thank you so much.

Anne Heros:

Thank you.