Sunday, August 16, 2009
Life, In this Issue...

Good ‘mourning’

Kate’s Club provides a sense of renewal and hope for children who’ve lost a parent or sibling

By Kirsten Ott Palladino

My father passed away with no warning in October. My world came crumbling down around me as I tried to cope with losing the greatest man I’ve ever known, my biggest cheerleader and the close bond I had with my dad, the one who sagely advised me on everything from friendships to career moves to dental care and insurance policies to planning my wedding. The pervasive question in my mind was “What will I do without him?” It’s been 10 months, and I have yet to get through a day without getting that all-too-familiar pang in my heart and eyes brimming with tears as some thought or memory flickers across my mind or I have the urge to call him, to hear his soothing voice.

I’m a 31-year-old adult. Imagine being 5 or 10, and losing your parent. How lost might you feel then? The parent who taught you your ABCs, how to throw a football or was just about to help you take your training wheels off your bike. Suffering a blow like that shapes the future for children who lose a parent at an early age. Whether it’s an unexpected death through a car accident or a heart attack or losing a four-year war against cancer, the cause of death and knowing it’s coming doesn’t make it hurt any less. How do we move forward from grief? How do we not feel so alone in it?

“If one thing makes us universal, it’s our grief,” says Kate Atwood, founder of Kate’s Club, an Atlanta nonprofit that helps children and teens who have suffered a death in the family. Atwood lost her own mother at the age of 12 to a six-year battle with breast cancer. “I went from being 12 to 30 in 24 hours. We all took on a survival mode—me, my brother who was two years older than me, and my dad. It was fend for yourself.” She says she battled a great deal with loneliness—not having a community of people who had similar experiences. “I knew two other people whose moms had died: Cinderella and Snow White.” She kept most of her feelings to herself, plunging herself into sports until college, where she met a group of friends who helped her evolve into a healthy adult. After graduation and a budding career in sports-related public relations, Atwood felt compelled to help children who were going through what she went through.

Getting started six years ago, Atwood knew her first goal was to find the children who needed her help. She didn’t have to look far. More than 40,000 children in the metro Atlanta area will experience the death of a parent or sibling before they reach the age of 18. “I contacted hospitals and got connected with a couple of families,” she says. “Then I started with a program with once-a-month outings, building that bond of friendship and having a good time.” Kate’s Club gradually grew to include a grief curriculum, a permanent space designed with a clubhouse motif, workshops, an annual camp called Good Mourning and more intensive weekly support groups, which are concentrated on the child’s loss and run by licensed professionals. But the basis of the organization remains the same: a highly social healing place. “It’s about not being alone in your grief—that you can still have fun, that your life doesn’t stop when you lose someone you love,” Atwood says. “My hope is to one day live in a world where it’s OK to grieve; a person who’s grieving shouldn’t be viewed as unstable, but rather healthy. The worst thought is 'I have to do this alone.’”

Kate’s Club provides hundreds of kids from all over the metro Atlanta area and as far away as Macon with a safe healing place devoted to them, their unique feelings and a community of people sharing similar experiences. All services are free to the families that use them. The organization has very few staffers, and more than 100 volunteers who serve as mentors and companions. It runs on donations alone. “We don’t have a big benefactor,” says Atwood. “Our largest donation each year is $30,000.” Much of the money that keeps Kate’s Club running—and helping families heal—comes from their annual fundraiser, Kate’s Club Cabaret. This year, the event takes place on Friday, Aug. 21 at the W Atlanta-Downtown from 8 p.m. to midnight. The fun-filled, high-energy soiree, which usually brings in 400 to 500 people, includes catered food stations, live entertainment and live and silent auctions. Hosts for the evening are Bert Weiss from “The Bert Show” on All the Hits Q100 and Mark Hayes from “Good Day Atlanta.” Individual tickets are $100. The W is offering special room rates for the night. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit www.katesclub.org. SP