Who knew a stone could mean so much?
When Michael Thomas died unexpectedly on Father’s Day 2010 at age 35 from a heart condition, Jaci Thomas said it was “sudden and hugely traumatic” to lose her husband.
She had to decipher how to help her children– Ethan, 11, Emma, 8, and Elijah, 3 — navigate their grief while she did the same.
About a month after Michael Thomas’ death, the family joined Stepping Stones, a family support group with PeaceHealth’s Hope Bereavement Services. The program focuses on healing while group participants channel their feelings through stories, art, writing and other activities.
Jaci Thomas liked how Stepping Stones approached grief from a kid’s level. Her children made drawings and met other children who were dealing with similar grief. The family also made a stone, decorated with gems and reminders of Michael. The stone, now weathered, rests in their backyard. It has “Michael” and “Dad” spelled on it in Scrabble-like tiles.
“It means nothing to anyone else, but it means a lot to us,” Jaci said.
Art that helps heal will be part of the goal at a Stepping Stones event from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday at Salmon Creek Regional Park, where anyone will have the opportunity to create a memorial stone honoring a deceased loved one.
The event is free and open to the public; no advance registration is required. There is a $3 parking fee in the Klineline Pond parking lot.
Colleen Story, who is the supervisor of hospice outreach and a bereavement counselor with PeaceHealth, created the event.
Story said this will be the first time the stone-decorating opportunity will be offered in a public setting. Friends of Hospice donated 176 stepping stone kits, which involve a mold that will dry after being decorated. In the Stepping Stones program, people have decorated stones with fishing lures, CDs, jewelry, game pieces, military dog tags and identification tags from pets.
“It just brings up the conversation, which allows healing to take place,” Story said. “One of the first things we tend to do when we’re healing is isolate ourselves because it’s really difficult to talk about grief with people who have not experienced it. The support isn’t quite there because people don’t get it. So bringing together people who have had a death helps normalize what they’re going through, and it provides support knowing, ‘I’m not alone in this.'”
Thomas said she learned a lot about how children grieve after Michael Thomas died. Son Ethan Thomas, who is now 19, cried initially, and then wanted to play video games. Jaci Thomas explained children “grieve the way they live. They play.” She mentioned playing was a healthy mechanism for her kids while they navigated their grief.
Elijah Thomas, now 12, remembers making a box full of reminders of his father. He placed a rubber frog and a picture of his dad in the box. Then he buried it.
“You do activities that are not based on death. They’re based on what the kids do,” Jaci Thomas said of Stepping Stones. “That process is a way of dealing with the grief, but it doesn’t feel like that. … They learned from the very beginning, it’s OK to grieve the way you want.”
