By Russell Ledbetter

On the evening of his 38th birthday, Travis Richmond celebrated with his two teenage daughters. 

By dawn, the Statesville fitness company owner was dead. His 15-year-old daughter, Courtney, found her father inside the family’s garage, in his truck with the engine still running. Police later discovered a suicide note.

“I never thought I’d be 15 years old and sitting at my father’s funeral,” Courtney said. “But everything happens for a reason. I’m just waiting to find this one out.”

Seven months later, Courtney continues to struggle with the loss, searching for answers while trying to come to grips with her father’s tragic death.
“Sometimes I just sit out in the garage and cry by myself for hours,” the teen said.

Courtney’s mother, Melissa Richmond, said it has been a challenge as a parent to try and help her daughter understand the loss, while also trying to grieve herself. 

“Courtney was real withdrawn and defensive at first,” Melissa said. “She didn’t want to talk about it because I think she knew if she talked about it, it would make it real. Her whole attitude on everything: school, life, God — for a while she didn’t believe in God. She was trying to blame someone. She was mad, distraught.”

Richmond sent her daughter to a professional counselor and sought help from their local church. In the beginning, however, it still wasn’t enough. Courtney said she felt different than her mother and older sister, Amber, because she was the one who had found her father’s body.

Teachers at West Iredell High School, where Courtney is a sophomore, were also very helpful, she said, but it was a school counselor’s suggestion — for Courtney to attend a teen grief group — that ultimately became an invaluable tool. Surrounded by peers who were struggling with similar levels of loss, the group of six to eight teens met for an hour during school once a week, working through the loss of their loved ones with the help of by professional counselors. The rest of the week the teens had each other.

“It was hard to talk at first, but it was easier than going to a therapist,” 16-year-old Dakota David said. “We would talk about how to control our grief and how to handle it.”

Dakota, a junior at West Iredell, had planned on being with close friend, Chris Berryman, 16, for a weekend sleepover, but then decided against it. The next morning, Berryman suffered a head injury when a rifle chamber exploded while the teen was target practicing in the woods with friends near his Statesville home. Besides being devastated by Berryman’s death, Dakota also blamed himself.

“I was supposed to be there,” he said.

Anger has been his most common response to the grief, Dakota said. When he heard the news about Berryman — who he considered closer than a brother — Dakota’s response was to throw a Sony PlayStation through his mother’s $900 plasma screen TV.

“In the group, they always ask me how I’m dealing with my anger today,” he said.

Facilitated by Hospice and Palliative Care of Iredell County’s Leigh Ann Darty and Lynn Kunkle, the high school grief group consisted of a small number of teens who met for 45 minutes a week with Darty and Kunkle helping them find tools to process their loss together.

Children are first screened before being recommended or admitted to a group. The Hospice program is currently in place at West Iredell High School, South Iredell High School, Statesville Middle School and Troutman Middle School. Grant funding through Speedway Children’s Charities of Charlotte is just one source of funding for the groups in area schools, Darty and Kunkle said. Hospice hopes to expand the program into all I-SS schools.

“In general, grief is going to show up in school if the child is having a hard time,” Darty, a Hospice social worker, said. “We’ve been able to go in and teach about grief and its stages. Everyone has different reactions at different times, so it’s important for a parent not to say, ‘You have to feel this way at this time and that way at that time.’ ”

Kunkle, a Hospice chaplain, says it is easier and most effective to reach teens by going into the schools and helping them grieve inside a group. However, it is up to each school to ask Hospice to come in.

“It’s helpful to hear someone else tell their story,” Kunkle said. “The kids don’t know each other, but they come into the group and bond and see each other in school. And when that group ends they still have each other.”

Stages of grief, depending on your preferred behavioral theorist, can take on anywhere from 3 to 20 stages, Hospice Bereavement Coordinator Randy Berryhill said. Berryhill narrowed them down to three: shock and surprise, experiencing the feelings, and reconciliation.

Parents are often tempted to try to protect their child after the death of a loved one. But parents should not keep the news from their children, Berryhill said. Let the child or teen know what is going on. Use terms the child would understand at their developmental level.

Avoid euphemisms such as “went to sleep, lost or passed away,” Berryhill said. “A younger child may not understand the concept of sleep vs. death. They think they may wake up.

“Religious-minded individuals might say ‘taken from us,’ but that can put God in a negative light. Euphemisms are our way to minimize pain,” Berryhill said. 

Some parents may be hesitant to broach a subject that they aren’t that comfortable with themselves, but shouldn’t let that stand in the way of talking to children.

“Ask your child if they have any questions. Work to help them say goodbye. Tell them you may not have all the answers,” Darty said.
Other advice includes:

+ Encouraging children to experience their feelings. When they do, let the emotions flow freely;

+ Inform the child’s school and acknowledge their separation from the loved one who has died;

+ Encourage the child to carry a memento of the deceased or participate in rituals they typically shared in with the departed. 

The last stage, reconciliation, allows parents and relatives to share memories and talk about the deceased to help keep their memory alive.

“That’s when they’ve reached some level of understanding where the child can use it as a marker in their life,” Berryhill said. “If grandpa died when I was 6, and now I’m 16 or 17, I now know a lot more about grandpa through family and friends and can say, ‘Yeah, grandpa did that.’ Their loved one continues on in the lives of other people and in the mannerisms of others.”

Lastly, parents can also be dogged by the same loss their child shares, and it is important for parents to take care of themselves while simultaneously helping their children cope. Hospice does not charge for bereavement services, Kunkle said. 

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