Children

TRU Grief Services Hosting Mother’s Day Event

April 17, 2017 by TRU Community Care

We invite you to join us in creating a remembrance wreath to honor a loved one.

For
Children, teens, and families coping with loss

What

In this hands-on art workshop, you’ll create a wreath to remember someone who has died – a mother, an aunt, a grandma, or a friend. Wreaths represent the circle of life and the four seasons.

Why

Play and art can act as a catalyst for processing grief. This Mother’s Day, please join us to make something beautiful to honor and remember the special lady who touched your life.

When: Saturday, May 13, 10:00 am – 12:00 pm

Location: TRU Community Care Grief Services, 2593 Park Lane, Lafayette, CO 80026

Register: Contact 303.604.5330

Learn more about TRU Community Care Grief Services.

Holiday Grief – You’re Not Alone

December 16, 2016 by TRU Community Care

Do the holidays make you feel uneasy? They are fast approaching. If you’re dreading them due to the loss of someone you love, know that your feelings are normal and you are not alone. Read on for tips on how to get through these days.

Be Open to New Traditions
For some, continuing traditions without their loved one there may be an important way to continue sharing their memory. For others, it may be more comforting to develop new rituals to help lessen the pain and immediacy of the loss.

Accept the Sadness
Let yourself feel your feelings. By allowing yourself to experience the sadness, it will pass more quickly than if you ignore it, hoping it will go away.

Remember Your Loved One
Light a candle, tell a funny story, create ornaments using photos, and talk about your special someone to keep the memories alive.

Reduce Your Stress
Take the time to prioritize what should be done, such as holiday baking, shopping for gifts, and decorating. Don’t try to do everything at once, and don’t overextend yourself or the commitments you make to others. Trust yourself first and foremost.

Practice Extreme Self-Care
Be gentle with yourself. You’ll feel so much better when you listen to your body and nurture it with the things it needs. Be just as kind to yourself as you were to your loved one.

Discover Small Joys
Gratitude makes for a happy heart. Take delight in the little things. Whether it’s the laughter of children or a hot mug of coffee, look for the good in each day.

Get more information on TRU Community Care’s grief services by calling 303.604.5300 or visit our Grief Services page.

Father’s Day Butterfly Memorial is set for June

May 10, 2016 by TRU Community Care

Remember the fathers, stepfathers, uncles, grandfather and other special men in your life at our annual Father’s Day Butterfly Memorial on June 19.

Both kids and adults are invited to come create mini butterfly gardens to attract your own butterflies at the Butterfly Pavilion in Westminster. Art and gardening supplies will be provided.

The event will start at 11:30 a.m. as attendees plant mini gardens filled with flowers and plants that attract butterflies. At noon, there will be a short ceremony and those who wish to share a memory may do so at that time and leave a love note at the memory table. There will be cake and juice to follow.

The butterfly release will be 12:30 pm in the rainforest wing. The Butterfly Pavilion is offering discounted admission of $5 per person for this segment of the program. Pre-registration is required.

If you go …
What: TRU Community Care’s Father’s Day Memorial and Butterfly Release
Where: The Butterfly Pavilion, 6252 W 104^th Westminster, CO 80020
When: June 19 from 11:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m.
How much: $5 admission to Butterfly Pavilion
More info: RSVPs are required to Michon by calling 303-604-5330

Crochet Grief Group is April 30

April 26, 2016 by TRU Community Care

We are partnering with Children’s Hospital and two of our Healing Circle’s bereaved PEDS parents to offer this unique one-day grief group. Together we will explore the healing powers of knitting and crocheting. This group is a knitting and crocheting workshop for all interested families to come learn how to use these skills to cope with the stresses and heavy feelings of grief.

Meeting: Saturday, April 30 from 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Location: Children’s Hospital, 13123 East 16^th Ave, Aurora, 80045

Contact: Michon Davies at TRU Community Care 303.604-5330 or Cassie at Children’s Hospital cassandramatz@childrenscolorado.org.

Download the flyer here: Crochet Day Flyer 2016

Healing with Horses returns for 2016

April 20, 2016 by TRU Community Care

Welcome to Healing with Horses…

We are currently taking applications for the summer sessions of Healing with Horses. This powerful experience combines equine-assisted activities with grief support for kids and teens ages 5 to 18, and provides a nurturing environment for expressing feelings, learning about grief coping strategies and exploring the healing process with peers who are also grieving a death loss.

Through Healing with Horses, grieving kids and teens:

Develop or improve equine skills
Work together in a safe and supportive setting, gaining trust in themselves and each other
Learn to control a horse, affording them opportunities to feel a genuine sense of accomplishment, greater confidence and inner strength
Share stories and memories, have fun and release physical and emotional energy
Become aware of the many aspects of the grieving process, and discover what will help and support them

When: Runs through the fall on Tuesdays, from 5-6:30 p.m.

Location: Medicine Horse, 8778 Arapahoe Road, Boulder CO, 80303

Register: Call Michon Davies 303-604-5330,

Pre-registration is required to participate.

For more details, see our grief services page.

Healing Circles Mother’s Day Event

April 20, 2016 by TRU Community Care

Healing Circles Mother’s Day Event

During this Mother’s Day, create something that you can hang and that will honor your special person. Kids process grief through play and art so every come and create something together. This art workshop is for kids, teens and families, helping them remember the special person who has died: a mother, an aunt, a grandma, a friend. Wreaths are often the symbols of the circle of life and of seasons.

This event will be held on Saturday, May 7 from 9:30 am. – 12:30 p.m. at the TRU Community Care Grief Services Office, 5565 Arapahoe Ste A, Boulder.

For more information or to reserve your spot, contact Michon Davies at 303.604-5330 or by email at michondavies@trucare.org.

Download the flyer here: Healing Circles Mother’s Day Flyer 2016

Movie highlight: “Way to Go: Death and the Irish”

April 18, 2016 by TRU Community Care

As those involved in hospice know very well, death is something few in our society want to talk about or acknowledge, yet it is a certainty. Why bother talking about it at all? In this the documentary, filmmaker Norah Casey explores Ireland’s relationship with death, speaking to healthcare professionals as well as people with terminal illnesses who share their thoughts on the last months of their lives. The film also includes contributions from well-known figures such as Gabriel Byrne, broadcasters Marian Finucane and George Hook, plus comments from members of the Irish public.
Check out this thought-provoking piece meant to promote open discussion on the topics of death and dying, as it has as much to say to Boulder County as it does to Ireland. It may seem too early – until it’s too late.

Remembering that special someone

February 10, 2016 by TRU Community Care

On this Valentine’s Day, those who have recently lost loved ones may want to use the occasion to honor and remember. At TRU Community Care, we find that holidays can be an especially tough time for our Boulder County hospice families.
Feb. 14 is a holiday designed to celebrate love. If your special person has died and you are going to celebrate this holiday, often kids will need to include their special person in the festivities. The relationship your child has with their special person may continue through all of their developmental stages as they integrate that loss.
The need to remember that special person may come and go as time passes, and depending on the nature of that relationship (e.g. the death of a teacher may be experienced differently than say, a death of a parent). They can choose to remember their person that day or not depending on how they are feeling. Grief looks different for each person, and it is different over time. Just taking a moment to pause and acknowledge the loss and how things have changed allows kids to process. Remind them of what helps them and that they can make themselves safe.
A simple remembering activity you can with your kids is to have each of you draw two hearts and cut them out. The first heart the child colors will represent who s/he is now and the second heart will represent the special person who died. After both hearts are colored, attach them together, symbolically representing the connection. If everyone in the family does it and attaches them all together, it is a visual reminder of each person’s link to the special person. Kids process loss through art and play, and creating time for that can create a meaningful holiday.
Be gentle with yourself in grief during holidays. Find out more about TRU’s Grief Services for adults and children here.

Helping Kids Survive the Holidays

November 24, 2015 by TRU Community Care

Holidays are difficult for kids & teens that have lost a loved one and are learning to navigate their grief journey. We understand how complicated this time can be for them, and have several groups offerings to help them survive the holidays. For more information on them or to see our full list of grief groups for kids and teens, click here.

Healing with Horses – Coping with the Holidays

This is a two week workshop offered for all ages 5-18. We combine equine-assisted activities with peer support to share stories, play games and be together remembering our special people who have died.

We learn various ways to care for horses and ourselves during the holidays. We will be talking about what helps us and what things we want to do this holiday season with our families.

You must pre-register to participate.

Meeting: December 8th & 15th
5:00 pm – 6:30 pm

Location: Medicine Horse, 8778 Arapahoe Road, Boulder CO, 80303

Download the flyer here: Coping with the Holidays – Healing with Horses 2015

Healing Circles Glass Memories Teen Group

We are also offering our teen Grief and Glass workshop. These workshops are for teens aged 13-18 who have had a death loss and want to remember their special person by creating some glass art.The group will learn glass blowing safety skills, how to marver, blow, shape and manipulate the glass with some color application. They will learn how to make a bowl, an ornament and a paper weight.

The maximum number for this group is eight and there is a registration interview required with both teen and parent/guardian prior to acceptance.

Meeting: December 20th or 27th
9:30 am – 12:00 noon

Location: C & H Glassworks, 11354 West 13th Ave #6, Lakewood, CO 80211

Download the flyer here: Coping with the Holidays 2015

Tips for Getting Through the Holidays when You Are Grieving

November 23, 2015 by TRU Community Care

Tips for Getting Through the Holidays when You Are Grieving

Acknowledge that this year will be different. Eliminate whatever you need to. There is nothing you must do. Grief depletes energy. Because of this lessened energy, the simplest of tasks may loom large and insurmountable. How can you face dinners and parties when smiling and laughter feel like the twist of a knife in the raw wound of your loss? How can you attend religious services with all of their reminders and implied promises?

Decide ahead of time how you want to spend the holidays. You may choose to be with family or alone, to go out of town or stay home with movies.

Do things that feel right for you, not because your loved one would have wanted it that way, or because your family thinks you should.

Give yourself permission to change whatever traditions or rituals that you need to change. Nothing is written in stone! Just because something has been done a certain way for twenty years doesn’t mean that it is the only way to do it. Change things if you want to. The option to return to the old traditions will be there next year and the year after.

Break the silence about your loved one so that others know that it is OK to talk about him or her with you.

Change the time, locations and/or menu of traditional meals. Or eliminate them altogether this year. Attend religious services at a different time than usual or at another house of worship-or don’t go at all this year. Decorate differently, have someone else decorate, decorate exactly the same as always or don’t decorate at all. Open gifts at a different time than you did before.

Memorialize your loved one in some way that is both important to you and would have meaning for him or her. It needn’t be a large gesture, but it is helpful if it has a unique and personal value. You can acknowledge that your deceased loved one isn’t there by putting a candle in their honor on the table, or making a toast, or by visiting the cemetery.

Break large tasks into small pieces. Don’t be afraid to delegate tasks to others.

Tell your family and friends what you need to feel supported. It may be to do shopping for you, help you cook dinner, or help you create new traditions. They would probably like to help you but don’t know what to do. Tell them as specifically as you can.

Be flexible in your plans, knowing that your energy, moods and needs may change quickly.

Set aside time to be alone and grieve, to reminisce or journal.

Recognize the sources of discomfort, try to anticipate even the smallest part that might elicit pain, and then decide what can or cannot be faced, altered or eliminated.

Take care of your own health; guard your own strength and energy. It is OK to say, “No” to invitations. It is difficult to predict your feelings and energy levels, so it’s also OK to change your mind at the last minute about attending dinners, parties and religious services or to leave a function early. You must be your own guide.

Be aware of the stresses of grief on your body and mind. Eat well (use sugar, caffeine and alcohol moderately), exercise, and get enough sleep.

If you wish to go away for the holidays, do so. Remember though that you will take your thoughts and your grief with you.

Do something you have never done before. Give your own life a degree of meaning and value no matter how bereft you are feeling.

Visit support groups, community memorials or church services with people that you know will support your experience.

For more information on our grief groups or to contact us, click here.

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