Kids who walked into the guidance office at Meredith Middle School in Middletown recently were gabbing about TV, their classes and who likes whom.

But as soon as they sat around a conference room table, they talked about more personal issues, including the deaths of loved ones.

"When I first saw Mommy in the hospital, I screamed my head off, I just

screamed and screamed and screamed my head off," said Emily Burge, 12, of Middletown, only child of Delaware City firefighter Michelle Smith, who died in December.

The other kids knew she had been hit by a car as she helped an injured motorcyclist, but Emily didn't tell anyone about having screamed until she was in the Compassionate Courage group, led by a national foundation in Newark.

Such groups meet in schools from Brandywine Springs to Townsend to Delmar, and are expanding year-round into youth programs and churches. Parents and guardians gave permission for youngsters in the group to share their experiences to help other children.

Meredith Middle School counselor Wendy Bailey, a Wilmington University counselor educator, said the groups let children talk "in a safe environment, with an adult who can handle the truth, the raw emotions, and makes the time to listen," along with "peers who care."

As Emily told of screaming when she saw her mother, her peers asked, in unison, "Why?"

"Because I never saw her like that before," Emily said. "Everybody was kissing her on the face, but I couldn't. She was all bandaged and bruised and tubes everywhere and everything. It didn't even look like her."

Kids stared, some held tears. One asked, "What did you do?"

Emily smiled, closing her eyes. "I kissed her on the arm," she said softly, "because that was the only part that still looked like her."

The smile grew on her face, then spread around the table.

On the same day, a new group joined Compassionate Courage Liaison Loretta A. Getty in an icebreaker circle.

"Step in the circle if you're wearing jeans," she said, and about half did. "OK, step back."

"Step in the circle if you like ice cream." Everyone did, then they compared favorite flavors.

"Step in the circle if you have a pet," she said, adding steps and talk of dogs, cats, others.

"Step in the circle if you like school." One kid stuck in a toe.

"Step in the circle if you like music." All the kids did.

"What kind?" Kids said "rap," "country," "musicals," "all kinds" and "anything but country."

Step-ins hit topics from siblings to cell phones, interspersed with, "Step in the circle if you miss your loved one who died," "Step in the circle if you sometimes feel sad about them dying," and, "Step in the circle if you sometimes feel angry they are gone."

For those, all the kids stepped in. Just two took steps for those whose grades suffered after the deaths and those who noticed a lot of changes since.

The last one was, "Step in if you like math class." No one did. But everyone laughed.

Getty said the circle's goal was "to get to know each other and ... see that we're all going through the same things, but we're all a little different."

The youth grief program predates its foundation sponsor.

The program was started by social worker Teri Busch as part of Compassionate Care Hospice, with board president Cathy Stauffer, then program director of the group that cares for terminal patients.

 

Compassionate Care Foundation, founded five years ago to handle memorial donations, "inherited the program," said national director Rozie Zappo.

The youth program also got grants this year from TJX Foundation, Marmot Foundation and Delaware Community Foundation. Such support is letting the foundation start training others as leaders and keeps the six-week program free, with program materials praised by counselor Bailey and students.

Kids say a keepsake book, by Getty and Zappo, helped them get past the bad to see the good.

On pages of "You will stay in my heart ... Forever!" kids drew stormy pictures to illustrate death and sunny scenes of rainbows and butterflies for life. On one page, they wrote about "The day I found out." On another, they put tips about what they do if they get sad, worried, lonely or afraid. They also listed wishes and hopes.

Another day, kids decorated "memory jars" full of notes with happy thoughts of their loved ones to reread at any time.

Around the tables of various groups, students told of times that would burden any soul.

They told of losing pets after loved ones' deaths, having back-to-back deaths in the family, remembering a loved one drunk and violent before dying and struggling with a drug death. They also talked about being left with an unresolved conflict with the one who died, hurting because a loved one died before the 30th birthday she looked forward to, living in fear after a loved one's killer got away and seeing grisly crime-scene photos.

Even for adults, such experiences are traumatic, Getty said.

So it is understandable they may avoid or feel unequipped to help children with such times and lingering issues that may bubble up at odd times and in unexpected ways, Getty said. Some parents also are likely to feel, as past generations tended to, that if kids went to school and did homework, they were OK.

Kids also may try to be strong to ease families' grief, she said.

But as hard as some kids' experiences and emotions were, Getty said, their memories have a pure simplicity, sure to grow more precious in time.

For example, David Werts, 13, of Odessa, said, "I'll always remember playing checkers with my grandfather."

At the table, the Courage kids talked of loved ones' differences.

 

Parent, grandparent, sibling, friend. Young, old. Near, far. Long sick, killed fast. Death in a small circle, others in the news.

"It's all the same, you know," Emily said. "Not everybody sees the news. ... and there's no difference between David's grandfather dying and my Mommy.

"It just breaks your heart."

But Emily said benefits held by Delaware City Fire Company, where her mother volunteered, help show her other people love and miss her mother.

Her dad, Brian L. Burge, said the group helped Emily. "After she started with the group, she opened up about more things to myself and other members of the family as well as her therapist," he said. "It helped her with realizing she had more people in her peer group that have dealt with the same things at one point or another and that she wasn't all alone."

Emily had talked a bit about her feelings, but more since she joined the group.

"She was really intrigued by the chance to sit and discuss things with other children that she related to every day," Burge said. "She also had an easier time dealing with how to approach holidays and ideas on how to cope with them."

For Mother's Day, he said, "we went to the cemetery and she placed flowers there for her Mom and then she let a card go that she wrote for her and tied to a bunch of balloons.

"We stood there and watched them 'til they faded out of sight."

At the end, the Middletown Courage kids were friends, piling together for snapshots, talking of summer, vowing to stay in touch -- and giving Getty a giant poster they made in secret.

 

They also told her what they thought of being in the group.

Emily said, "it was great."

"It has helped me tremendously by teaching me coping skills and activities to help us," said Paige Koeller, 12, of Townsend.

"You're around people who understand what you're going through," said Ashlee Fiscus, 12, of the Smyrna area.

Jessica Blakely, 13, of Middletown, said, "I think it is good to talk about things like that and not to keep them inside because they just build up."

And 12-year-old Abbie Broadbent, of Townsend, said, "I think the discussions helped the most because it really helped me express how I felt and I realized that others are going through a tougher time than I am."

As the kids helped each other put on pendants from Getty -- silver circles saying "COURAGE" -- they said they had only one complaint about the group.

They wished it lasted longer.

The program helps youngsters express feelings of grief or loss from death, separation or divorce. It is a program of the national Compassionate Care Hospice Foundation, based in Newark.

The program is free to schools statewide, expanding year-round to nonprofits and offering training for others to lead similar groups.

Compassionate Courage and Compassionate Care Hospice Foundation welcome tax-deductible donations at 11 Independence Way, Newark, DE 19713, where the office is open 8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. weekdays.

For information, including volunteer opportunities, call 368-8944 or visit www.cchfoundation.net, also offering "Courage" pendants.