Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, November 6, 1994                   TAG: 9411070056
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: SARAH HUNTLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

'I KNOW IT HURTS, BUT I WANT YOU TO KNOW IT'S OK TO CRY'

Five-year-old Lisa Lemond pushed away the strand of hair that was tickling her nose and squirted black paint into the whirling spin-art machine. Blackness seeped into the white paper, mixing with the red paint she had used a few minutes before.

A volunteer shut off the machine, and Lisa quietly held up her paper. The artwork - an abstract circle of colors - needed no elaborate explanation.

It was the picture of grief.

Lisa and about 17 other children used art to express a complicated and varied set of feelings Saturday when they gathered at Oak Level Baptist Church in Bassett for Virginia's first-ever Camp Mending Hearts. The all-day camp for kids who have lost someone they love was sponsored by Arrington-Bussey Funeral Home, Collins-McKee Funeral Services, Lynch Funeral Home and the Transition Center in Greensboro, N.C.

"Grief is such a closed-door issue in America. We deny death, and we refuse to recognize that it's a part of living," camp director Darlene Maynard said. "This is not a day for denial. It's not a day for hiding our feelings. We try to get the kids to open up."

For Lisa, that meant sending a message to her 14-year-old sister, Sherry, who died after being hit by a car. "I love you, Sherry," she wrote on a picture she drew. "I love you very much." Other children talked about losing a father, grandparent or aunt to illness, accident or suicide.

"Everybody's got to die," said 9-year-old Timmy Songer, whose grandmother died of cancer while serving a seven-year prison term for selling drugs. "Sometimes, I feel happy because she's in a better place, in heaven. God can help her live and bring her life back together up there."

In addition to art therapy, the kids shared in small discussion groups and participated in tree-planting and balloon-liftoff ceremonies. Parents were given the day off, free to meet in adult groups to discuss their grief, while volunteers, such as Jerry Tawney, helped coordinate the children's activities.

"This is not only good for the children and parents," Tawney said. "It's good for the volunteers, too. It helps us bring back our own losses and remember people who were special to us."

He bonded quickly with his charge, 4-year-old Ethan Brown, whose father died two years ago. When Ethan's big brown eyes welled with tears in an afternoon session about saying goodbye, Tawney gave him a hug.

"I know it hurts, but I want you to know it's OK to cry," Tawney said.

Lindy Collins said she cries often over the death of her husband. Larry Collins died in a truck accident one year, two months and 20 days ago, she said. But she worries that her children, 10-year-old Diana and Chad, 6, keep their emotions bottled up.

"I look for anything I can to help them. Like most children, they want to protect me. They keep everything inside," she said.

As the wind blew leaves around the yard, Maynard watched the children at the outdoor craft tables.

"We try to get them to use not only words, but symbols, too," she explained. "Sometimes, the child's heart comes right out on the paper."

After moving from table to table, 5-year-old Lisa returned to the spin art. She put a fresh piece of paper into the machine and pointed to a shoebox of fluorescent yellow, orange and pink paints.

"I'm not going to use black this time," she said, her voice little, but fervent. "I'll take anything but black."