❤ Mike Halpern – VOLUNTEER ❤

“It’s now 2022, and I’ve been an Ele’s Place Ann Arbor volunteer grief facilitator for eight years. The Ele’s Place peer-to-peer model creates a forum where similar-aged children and teens engage in facilitator led activities, each designed to help them process their feelings of loss, sadness, and pain, as well as the many unexpected changes that accompany the death of someone in their life. They discuss complicated feelings at their level. Not surprisingly, children and teens find common ground to discuss, and as a result, don’t have to feel alone, isolated, or different.

“As a volunteer facilitator, this metaphor illustrates grief for me: Grief is like a terribly painful scar that gradually hurts less as it fades, but never goes away. It is always part of you, but it changes and takes on different forms.

“Talking with others doesn’t eliminate grief for children and teens, but it does make it easier for them to process it and begin to move on with their lives. I am so honored to be an Ele’s Place Ann Arbor volunteer facilitator, and so happy that there is an Ele’s Place for children, teens and their families to attend, so they DON’T HAVE TO GRIEVE ALONE.” ❤

Mike Halpern, thank YOU for sharing your little heart stories throughout the month of March! We are grateful for YOU – YOU fill the HEART of Ele’s Place Ann Arbor. ❤

❤ Mike Halpern – VOLUNTEER ❤

“January 31st, 1969 was a cold, wintery Ann Arbor day that started with my brother Andy and I walking to Wines School. After lunch my second-grade teacher walked me to the principal’s office. To my surprise, Andy was waiting for me. Why was everyone so quiet and grim? Mrs. Dickson, a family friend drove us home without saying a word. Our mom let us in, burst into tears, and said, “Your father died this morning.”  Andy started sobbing. I struggled to comprehend the moment. I was frozen…it felt like an atomic bomb detonated in my abdomen creating a void of emptiness and hurt. When I returned to school the kids, even my friends, avoided me. Glassy-eyed teachers acted like everything was normal. I knew that EVERYTHING had changed. I would be alone, isolated, and different for the rest of my life.

“As an Ele’s Place Ann Arbor grief support group volunteer facilitator, I often reflect back on how much my brother, my mom and I could have benefitted from peer grief support when my dad died. I am so honored to be an Ele’s Place Ann Arbor volunteer facilitator, and so happy that there is an Ele’s Place for children, teens and their families to attend, so they DON’T HAVE TO GRIEVE ALONE.” ❤