BAINBRIDGE ISLAND — Slowly and carefully, about a dozen people tried balancing together in the center of a giant teeter-totter deep in the woods of Bainbridge Island.
They tried distributing weight, tried putting the kids on first, tried breathing, tried relaxing and tried nothing at all.
“OK, everybody just be still!” someone called out. “Don’t do anything.”
The exercise, known as the Whale Watch, is a mainstay on the IslandWood environmental learning center’s team-building course. It recently brought together a group of grieving military families.
Virginia-based Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, also known as TAPS, gathered about 60 widows, their children and other family members together at Islandwood for three days of activities focused on coping with their loss and building new friendships.
Jamie O’Brien said the Whale Watch could be a metaphor for what she and her 7-year-old daughter, Sofia, have dealt with since her husband, an Army National Guard sergeant, died two years ago.
“There are ups and downs but you just try and stay steady,” she said.
The families took part in group discussions, art projects, hikes and nature-based activities at IslandWood’s 255-acre campus.
“Many of these families are dealing with a traumatic loss,” said TAPS founder Bonnie Carroll. “Coming here to IslandWood, they feel safe, they get away from it all. They slow down, they breathe fresh air … and then they feel like they can share things, they can verbalize what they’ve been feeling, sometimes for the first time.”
TAPS is a nonprofit organization supported by the Schultz Family Foundation. It hosts about 60 events each year. This summer, TAPS had veterans fly-fishing in Montana and military widows climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.
The IslandWood retreat drew families from Colorado, Texas, Illinois, Maryland and New York.
“We have five families from Colorado Springs,” Carroll said. “One of them said she had felt alone, with no friends. Now she has a community.”
The families decorated “gratitude jars” and filled them with written reminders of what they’re thankful for. They also made “hero flags” to honor the men they lost.
One of the flags, hung from a mantle in an IslandWood dormitory, was decorated with Army logos and images of helicopters. At its center, it read “My husband, my sunshine.”
The number of veterans-related events has been on the rise at IslandWood, which has long focused on nature-related events and outings for urban schoolchildren. The center now hosts the annual Military Families and Veterans Summit, led by U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, and has held retreats for the Sierra Club’s Military Families and Veterans Initiative.
“It’s changing our DNA,” IslandWood Vice President Martin LeBlanc said.
The simple act of spending time under towering trees can’t help but be therapeutic, Carroll said.
“The forest has been here for so long that it gives you the sense that time expands,” she said. “You get the sense that there is time after (the grieving process) and that there’s so much that’s larger than us.”