Guest Column: A language all its own

I thought I was volunteering to help children who had experienced unimaginable loss. I never expected they would help me rediscover something I thought I’d left behind years ago.

After becoming a full-time Shelter Island resident last spring, I was looking for a meaningful way to become involved in the community. I had already enjoyed volunteering with several local organizations and was hoping to find something where I could make a lasting difference. That’s what led me to Camp Good Mourning!.

Before signing up, I knew little about the organization. I learned it was a free overnight bereavement camp for children who have experienced the death of a parent or sibling. Like most volunteers, I signed up because I wanted to help. I thought I would spend a weekend giving something to children who had experienced such profound loss.

Instead, I came home realizing how much they had given me. They reminded me of the healing power of camp, the importance of simply showing up for one another, and the remarkable capacity children have for joy, even while carrying grief.

Most Shelter Island residents know Camp Quinipet. I thought I did, too. Over the years, I had attended church retreats there, and later my own sons enjoyed some of its summer programs. Until I volunteered there, though, I didn’t realize everything that happens beyond the traditional summer camp season. Throughout the year, Camp Quinipet becomes home to organizations that serve families from across Long Island and beyond, including Camp Good Mourning!.

Walking onto the grounds for volunteer training, I was immediately transported back to my childhood summers at Camp Casowasco in upstate New York. It wasn’t one dramatic moment. It was dozens of little things — the musty smell of the cabins lined with rows of beds, the lyrics to old camp songs hanging on posters around the dimly lit dining hall, and the peaceful waterfront just beyond the trees. Camp has a language all its own.

Camp Casowasco shaped me in ways I probably didn’t appreciate at the time. It was where lifelong friendships began, confidence quietly grew, and I discovered what it meant to belong. Looking back, I realize many of the values that still guide my life — empathy, fairness, humility, kindness and service — took root there. They were learned around campfires, during cabin clean-up and kitchen duty, eating banana boats and drinking bug juice, singing songs, learning to sail and simply spending time with people who had just met, yet cared deeply about one another.

When I learned Camp Casowasco had closed after serving generations of children and families, I was far more emotional than I expected. It felt like losing a piece of my childhood. It also made me realize that places like these quietly shape who we become, and we often don’t appreciate them until they’re gone.

Maybe that’s one reason my weekend at Camp Quinipet affected me so deeply.

Before camp began, every team member completed thoughtful, comprehensive training. I expected to spend most of the weekend learning what to say to grieving children. Instead, I learned something much simpler: children don’t need us to have all the answers. They need adults who will show up, listen, laugh with them, and create a place where they feel safe enough to simply be kids.

And then the campers arrived.

Almost immediately, it felt exactly like the camp I remembered as a child. Children raced to play in the Gaga pit. They called out, “Top bunk!” or “Bottom bunk!” They made crafts, sang songs, ate s’mores around the campfire, and stayed up with flashlights in hand, just a little too late, talking in their cabins. There was laughter everywhere.

One afternoon, one of the girls asked if she could “do” a young male team member’s hair. Without hesitation, he smiled and said yes. A few minutes later, he was walking around camp with tiny pigtails sticking out all over his head, proudly becoming the center of the joke.

Everyone laughed, including him. Before long, another boy wanted his hair done. Then another. Soon even some of the teenage boys, who had arrived looking much too cool for something like that, were waiting their turn.

It was funny. It was completely ridiculous. And it was also one of my favorite moments of the weekend.

Healing wasn’t always happening in support groups. Sometimes it happened during an Uno tournament in the girls’ cabin. Sometimes it happened debating the best Starburst flavor. Sometimes it happened singing a ridiculous song about popsicles on the volleyball court.

Sometimes it happened while everyone laughed at a counselor proudly wearing a head full of tiny pigtails. For a little while, grief wasn’t the thing that defined these children. They were simply kids at camp.

I arrived hoping to make a difference in a child’s life. I left realizing they had made an equally profound difference in mine.

The experience changed the way I see Camp Quinipet. It’s far more than a familiar landmark on Shelter Island. It’s a place where children build confidence, families connect, communities gather, and organizations like Camp Good Mourning! help young people begin to heal. I suspect many of us who know Camp Quinipet well may not realize everything that takes place there beyond the traditional summer camp season.

The next time I hear camp songs drifting through the trees or see the Quinipet gazebo from the water, I’ll see Camp Quinipet a little differently. I’ll remember that sometimes the most meaningful things happening in our communities are also the quietest.

And I’ll be grateful that another generation of children has a place where they discover they are not alone, friendships begin in a single weekend, and camp still has the power to change lives.