Camp offers refuge for kids grieving loss of loved ones

It's arts and crafts time at Camp Mariposa, and the young campers gather in the blessedly cool air of the camp's activities building to do some amazing things to butterfly-shaped pieces of material.

Using colored markers, sequins and oodles of imagination, the children are creating butterflies in colors that, unfortunately, won't ever be found among the real things outside at Camp Mariposa's address for the weekend at Potosi Pines, a church camp and retreat center between Las Vegas and Pahrump.

On the surface, the butterfly-creating session looks like any other arts and crafts activity you'd find at any of dozens of other summer youth camps across the valley. But, here at Camp Mariposa, the butterflies - unlike the lanyards and wallets you'd probably see elsewhere - will serve as the campers' own memorials for their moms and dads, brothers and sisters and other loved ones who have died.

Camp Mariposa, operated by Nathan Adelson Hospice, is designed to help children ages 7 to 12 cope with grief and bereavement issues growing out of their loved ones' deaths. Here, campers can enjoy a three-day-long respite from the city and their families, learn bereavement coping strategies and, most of all, be able to share what they feel with people who will listen.

This summer marks Camp Mariposa's 22nd year, said Diane Smith, Nathan Adelson's vice president of clinical operations. The camp is offered free of charge, and 49 campers trekked to Mount Potosi this year to take part.

Camp counselors have been trained in grief and bereavement, Smith said, and the weekend's roster of activities includes healing circles and sessions during which children may give tangible, physical manifestation - through, say, letters they write, a totem pole they will build, skits they perform and keychains they'll create - to whatever it is they're feeling.

And, of course, there are those butterflies, all of which ultimately will be affixed to a board on which memories of campers' loved ones will be honored.

A few of the butterflies bear footballs. There's a nickname or two, and butterflies wearing many colors.

One 12-year-old camper's butterfly is resplendent in violet and yellow sequins. It's in memory of her grandma, she said. "She really liked the colors purple and yellow."

Another camper's butterfly wears a hockey jersey with a No. 1 on it. Her dad, she explained, played hockey when he was a kid.

But along with bereavement- and counseling-oriented activities, Camp Mariposa offers its campers activities right in line with that classic summer camp vibe. At the archery range, for example, one camper finds her bow-and-arrowing interrupted by her discovery of a tiny worm on a nearby pine tree.

"Take a picture of it!" the excited 7-year-old said to a photographer, as she takes the worm, resting on a pine needle, around to show others.

Frazier Berman, 20, is spending his second year as a Camp Mariposa counselor. He became involved with the camp after losing his mother to metastatic breast cancer two years ago.

For Berman, serving at Camp Mariposa is "an amazing opportunity to give back to help kids who are in a position so much worse than the position I was in."

Losing a loved one is never easy, at any age. But, Berman said, "I'll tell you what makes it easy is doing things like this. Things like this are what allow me to grieve in a way that is happy, and that's why we do it. Kids are able to do the same thing and grieve in a way that's happy."

Camp Mariposa, he added, offers kids "an opportunity to not just have a vacation and not just have a net of support, but also tools to deal with the grief and emotion that inevitably comes, and turn it into something that can be a happy memory instead of a tragic memory."

For some campers, Camp Mariposa can be simply a place to be able to cry, Berman said, "an opportunity to let some of that emotion out that is much needed."

That very morning, a camper revealed that he sometimes feels better when he can cradle his stuffed animal. Then, Berman said, "he sits there about 15 seconds with a straight face and, out of nowhere, this rush of emotion came and he started to cry."

Contact reporter John Przybys at
jprzybys@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0280.