Editor’s note: Today, the Sun Sentinel launches its annual Children’s Fund holiday campaign.
A bonfire can create a warm place to express grief, a process made easier when sharing answers to simple questions.
And so, on a cool fall night in South Florida, Abby Mosher asks a group of teens huddled around a fire pit in Coconut Creek to say why they’re here – and what they like to do when it’s cold outside.
They begin:
“My name is Joshua, I’m 13 and my brother killed himself. And when it’s cold out, I like to drink hot chocolate.”
“My name is Danielle, I’m 15, and my dad had a heart attack and overdosed. When it’s cold out, I like to ride my bike.”
After eight more introductions – punctuated with the words “car accident,” “murdered” and “stroke” – Mosher adds her own introduction:
“My name is Abby, I’m 48, and my husband died in a car accident.”
Mosher is the founder of Tomorrow’s Rainbow, a small ranch in Coconut Creek where children work through the grief of losing a loved one.
“The kids discover they’re not in isolation,” Mosher said. “Feeling different, like they’re the only one, is emotionally devastating.”
She opened the ranch in 2005 after watching her son Dustin, then 7, struggle with the death of his father, Mosher’s husband, in a 2000 car accident.
“My only regret is that I couldn’t start it faster, to help my own child more,” she said, noting her son wrestled with feeling like he could not relate to his friends. They were actually fortunate because insurance covered private therapy, “and even that doesn’t help with the social isolation.”
She knows what the kids are going through.
“What they have is not a ‘problem,’ it’s a life event. They need support,” Mosher said. Dustin, for example, has had “10 painful years” of trying to find himself. He’s a student at Florida Gulf Coast University, and doing well, his mom said.
Jasmin McQuire, 15, of Lake Worth, said Tomorrow’s Rainbow works because it’s about teens talking to each other. They meet every other week for two hours.
“It hurts to talk about it, but you know you’re not going to be judged here,” said McQuire, whose mom died when she was 8. “Sometimes kids understand it more than adults.”
McQuire, a sophomore at Park Vista High School, began visiting Tomorrow’s Rainbow only a month ago, but started swapping cell numbers with several teens right away.
“I’m a hard person to open up, but it felt like you’re sitting with family,” she said.
Equine-assisted learning
Mosher bought the 2.3-acre property just west of Tradewinds Park and named it Tomorrow’s Rainbow, for God’s Old Testament message to Noah to hang on, there are brighter days ahead. Her house occupies one corner. A small ranch, with nine miniature horses, two miniature donkeys, two goats, three sheep and a pig, covers the rest.
She uses the animals during teaching exercises. Mosher is certified in equine-assisted learning and psychotherapy by the Equine Assisted Growth and Learning Association.
At one recent session, teams of teens led blindfolded partners through a maze of “decisions.” Respect, responsibility, cooperation and honesty were among the good choices; rudeness, danger, selfishness and dishonesty were the bad.
“It’s a metaphor. When you have tough choices in your life, you need support from others to get through them,” Mosher said.
Another week, she had groups lead a horse to several stations, but intentionally left the instructions vague. That fueled a discussion about how confusing guidelines can be in the outside world.
The lessons, often dealing with the unknown and with frustration, are discussed over pizza. But the conversations morph when a teen relates it to feelings about losing someone.
“You don’t want to talk about it at school,” said Jami Tero, 16, a junior at South Plantation High. But at Tomorrow’s Rainbow, she opened up about her grandmother and her father, both of whom died in August 2008.
“They were my best friends,” she told everyone.
Children need to grieve
The teens are just one group at Tomorrow’s Rainbow, which currently serves more than 100 children from Palm Beach and Broward counties. The teens meet for two hours every other Monday night, alternating with a group of children ages 6 to 12. Four groups of children ages 3 through 12 meet on alternating Saturdays.
Mosher would like to add more staff to serve more children. One in 20 children will lose a parent before they graduate from high school, she said, citing national statistics.
“First, they suffer the tragic death of a parent, then they also suffer the consequences of a community that doesn’t understand their needs,” she said. “Broward and Palm Beach counties alone have about 35,000 children grieving the death of a parent, and that doesn’t include grandparents, siblings and friends.”
She’d like to build a “real barn” for the horses, add administrative staff, replace the portable toilet with a real restroom – but not tap into the donations that feed and board the horses, pay for art supplies, and keep the lights on.
Mosher works for free and volunteers donate 95 percent of the hours. The only staffers are a contracted mental health counselor and a part-time fundraiser.
Susan Stinemire, of Weston, whose husband died in a car accident on Jan. 26, said Mosher’s farm has renewed the spirit of her 12-year-old daughter, Samantha.
“There’s something about Tomorrow’s Rainbow that’s contagious,” she said. “And people have noticed a major change in Samantha’s attitude since coming here.”
Honoring loved ones
If the activities and pizza chat don’t draw out talk, Mosher has a traditional end to every session that guarantees even the quiet ones have their say.
Mosher and the kids all gather and sit in a small shed, with butterflies, flowers and hearts painted on the wall to make it look like an oversized playhouse.
They place a memory rock into a pile, and relate a happy time they had with their loved ones. Stories of making pies. Fishing. Riding roller-coasters together.
Then they light a candle.
“I light this candle in memory of …” they say one by one.
The candles all go onto a table in the center, everyone’s thoughts pooled together.
Taking time to honor their loved ones allows children to express that they lost somebody important. It’s OK to be sad.
“They don’t have to ‘just get over it,’ ” Mosher said. The ritual helps maintain a relationship they cherish.
And that’s something nobody can take away.
Nick Sortal can be reached at or 954-356-4725.
