My husband passed away two days after his 36th birthday. My kids were four and six. Suddenly, I was a single parent trying to help my children through their grief while managing my own.

I kept hearing, “Kids don’t grieve; they’ll be fine.” But I saw the changes in their behavior that said otherwise. One night, as I was putting my son to bed, he said, “Mommy, I just want to commit suicide.” I asked him, “Why would you say that?” And he said, “Because I want to go see Daddy. Then I’ll come back and be with you tomorrow.” It terrified me.

That was the moment I realized my kids needed to meet others who had gone through a similar loss, and I began working to make that happen.

Once we put the first group together and my kids attended, I was driving home and my daughter said, “Mommy, tomorrow I want to take Daddy’s picture to school for show and tell and let my friends know that he died.” Later, I learned that one of the other children in her group had shared their story at school and found classmates who had also lost someone. That’s all my daughter needed - to know she wasn’t alone in her grief.

That was the day I knew The Sharing Place was the right thing to do.