Ch 9

A camp story

Counselors and campers made a ring around the flagpole, standing at camp attention they watched the stripes be pulled down. Sarah Delong walked to the right side of the circle to get Eleanore from her adopt-a-cabin and I walked to the left to get Anna from hers.

"Hey Anna," I said and she turned around, "Can I grab you for second?" She grabbed her backpack off the bench and walked with me towards the office. "Your mom called while you were at lake time and we need to call her back," I explained. She looked at me expecting more information but I couldn't say anything else. A few more steps and Anna noticed Sarah walking our direction with Eleanore, her best friend from home. The girls looked at each other, by now full of worry and confusion about what was going on. Parents don't call camp during lake time. Kids don't get pulled out of flagpole to call home. You never go through the front office door into the main lodge.

Anna and I walked into one room to call home and Sarah and Eleanore went into the room right next door. I helped Anna dial out on the camp phone and she punched in her home number. She stared into nothing as the phone rang on the other end. I pulled a chair close to her at the desk, not sure how this would play out.

"Mom. What's going on?" she said in one breath. I watched her stop breathing for a second as her mom told her. Natalie, one of her friends from home, died in a car accident last night.

Anna was quiet on the phone. She listened closely, tears in her eyes, asking questions and saying, "yeah... ok... yeah" as her mom asked questions on the other end. I took the phone and talked to her Mom before we hung up, promising we'd call back soon. The door opened and Eleanore and Sarah walked in. Eleanore's eyes were red and the girls went right to each other hugging tight.

This was the second time we'd had to make a phone call like this in three weeks. After five years as a counselor I thought I was done experiencing new things. You sign up to teach friendship bracelets, to help kids make friends, to be a watcher at the pool, to sing songs at campfire. This wasn't in the job description. Watching campers find out they had lost a close friend was something I had never even considered being a part of my summer. Here we were doing it again. This had never been on my radar but I knew this would be one of the most significant nights as a counselor.

The girls told us Natalie was part of their group of friends from their small private school. The funeral was Friday but their camp session didn't end till Saturday. Their moms told them to talk about it and decide if they wanted to come home early for the service or to finish out their time at Tecumseh. Immediately both girls said, "I want to stay. I feel like this is where I should be right now. There's only a couple days left and I don't want to miss out on them. It'll be sad no matter when we go back. I don't want to leave yet."

We sat on the blue variegated carpet in a circle with the girls. The bell rang for everyone to go inside to dinner from flagpole but we stayed in the office. The girls needed time and space. They were quiet and I struggled with not having the right words to say. I don't think there is anything to say in a time like this. There are no answers to the question, "Why?" I believe that it's not important to have the right words but far more important to just be there.

They weren't ready to go in the dining hall so I went and brought back a red tray piled with chicken patties, bowls of mashed potatoes and corn, a basket of rolls and butter packets and a half gallon of milk from the kitchen. We laughed at our little picnic on that floor, the girls barely eating more than a few spoonfuls of potatoes and a roll. There was a silence punctuated by tears or a question or a thought about Natalie from the girls.

The CILTs were supposed to be with their adopt-a-cabins until devotions that night, leading the activity they had planned. I went to find Anna and Eleanore's counselors to tell them what had happened and that the girls would be with me the rest of the night.

Anna and Eleanore wanted to avoid questions about their red eyes and absence from dinner so we laid low for the night--we wrote top 10 lists and I showed them pictures from previous summers, they just wanted to be distracted for a little bit. Hours later the CILT girls returned to the Longhouse from their younger cabins. Before they even heard the news of what happened to Natalie they hugged their friends. They had noticed their absence all night and knew that something was not okay. Crawling up on the bed they sat together as they heard the news. I remember them huddled together on bunks talking as the girls quietly started to cry again.

In the past two weeks all of these girls had laughed and joked and played and adventured together. Their time at camp had been filled with so much joy and love and happiness. We call Tecumseh the camp bubble because usually nothing from the outside world directly affects you. But now, with the news of Natalie, these friends showed that their love for each other far surpassed laughing on the porch. This was real friendship, real love. Anna and Eleanore's sadness was felt by the other girls. This was why the pair wanted to stay at camp for the last three days. Here they had built a support system that was going to care for them, pray for them, and tangibly sit right there beside them as they figured all of this out.

We talked about questions in devotion that night. With all that this group was going through it seemed like we were all spilling over with questions. Christ asked questions to people all the way through the gospels--he wanted to people to think, to questions, to explore, to doubt, to challenge what they believed in. He asked...

Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
You of little faith, why are you so afraid?
What is it you want?
What do you want me to do for you?
You of little faith, why did you doubt?
But what about you? Who do you say I am?
Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?
What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world yet forfeits his soul?

I believe that questions are sometimes more important than answers. The girls wrote lists of questions they would ask God if they were sitting face to face and then shared some of them with the group. Their words revealed their heart, vulnerability, and fear. The news of the day was weighing down on all of us and the girls scribbled down their words, some wiping away tears as they worked. We asked...

Have I learned anything?
Who can I trust?
Am I too far gone?
Do you have a plan for me?
Why can't I hear your voice?
Are you listening?
Am I next?
Is there a right choice?
Is everything going to be ok?
Shouldn't I just know?
What can I do?
Have I changed?
Am I enough for you?
Am I making an impact?
How do you forget the past?
How can there be so much joy and so much pain?

We prayed holding hands in a candlelit circle like we always do, "Amen. Ok, everyone has to hug at least six people before going to bed." They embraced their friends in huge hugs, tears on many of their cheeks, finding far more than six friends each. The room thinned as girls left for their beds and Anna and Eleanore came up to me, "Sarah, can we talk?"

"Yes, of course. I'll meet you on the porch." I blew out the candles and told Carol, the counselor in our adjoining cabin, that I was going to walk with the girls and we would be back soon.

I love nights at camp when the everything is illuminated by the stars and the humidity leaves just long enough for you to wear a sweatshirt. We walked with our arms linked, crunching the gravel with our flip-flops. Anna and Eleanore both cried like they had been most of the night. Once again I didn't have the right words to say but I held their arms tighter and we continued to walk. I led us across the screaming bridge and up the lake hill into the night. Anna wiped her nose with her sweatshirt sleeve. These woods are the darkest part of camp. Bits of moonlight filtered through the trees to light our path on the road. "Girls, can you tell me things you love about Natalie?" After hours of not knowing what to say the girls quickly filled the silence with stories about their friend. They laughed for the first time and it was like a weight had been lifted from their shoulders. The tears were still on their cheeks but I saw a smile when they remembered funny things Natalie had done.

The stories continued until we walked out onto the dock at the lake and sat Indian style. The water lapped up against the paddle boats and muffled voices drifted across the distance to us from Buffalo lodge. Once again in silence we sat, each lost in our own thoughts. We sat there for ten or twenty minutes finally in peace. Eleanore later told me, "The presence of God was just so powerful at the lake that night. I know he was right there with us."

After awhile we prayed together in a triangle. We prayed for Natalie's family. We prayed for Anna and Eleanore. We prayed that the rest of their friends at home would understand why they weren't coming back right away. We prayed for the rest of their time here at camp.

Walking back through the woods arm-in-arm we felt the exhaustion from the day. It was good to walk. Walking each step together communicated what I couldn't put into words. The girls were not alone in this but surrounded by people that loved them dearly, they would continue to move forward, and God was going to be with them each step of the way. The cabin was quiet when we returned so we quietly took off our flip-flops at the door and tip-toed through the dark cabin to our beds.