SYCAMORE TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Steve Joebgen grabs a handful of candles out of the closet at Moeller High School. In the hallway, below a sign that says campus ministry, a student stops him.
“Who’d you lose buddy?” Joebgen asked him.
The student wants to join the school’s grief group.
“Kids are resilient, but with a caveat. They will carry trauma with them for the rest of their lives,” Joebgen said later. “There’s always more going on beneath the surface than we realize.”
Inside the school’s chapel, Joebgen lights rows of candles in the shape of a cross. He wants to make sure they work.
Then, he blows them out.
In the library, Benny Sharpshair takes a deep breath before answering a question about his brother.
“He loved everything — too much, actually,” he said with a smile. “He loved talking too much.”
Benny's brother died in an ATV crash a few years ago. Now, the freshman swimmer misses what used to annoy him.
“I’d love to just tell him to be quiet right now," he said.
In the school's chapel, Benny stands up from a pew and walks to the altar.
“Today, I light a candle for my brother Paul," he said.
Benny is not alone. One by one, nearly 60 high school students light a candle for someone they’ve lost.
“For my mom.”
“My dad.”
“My uncle.”
“Grandma.”
By the time they turn 18, one in 10 children in Ohio will experience the death of a close family member, according to a group that researches childhood grief. And that means there are about 6 million grieving kids and teens in the United States, the Childhood Bereavement Estimation Model shows.
It’s a shock no one is prepared for, and it’s why WCPO 9's Search for Solutions brought us here to Moeller.
“I lost my faith when I was in high school,” Joebgen told us. “Because I didn’t get to have the experience that (these students) get to have.”
In second grade, the director of campus ministry lost his dad. In high school, his best friend died.
Now, Joebgen said he receives names of students every week who’ve lost someone just like he did. And then he asks them if they want to join the grief group.
“Welcome to the greatest group nobody wants to be a part of," Joebgen said.
In the library, students eat pizza. Eventually, there is laughter. And stories about people who’ve died.
“I’m not a teacher," Joebgen said. "This is a conversation.”
At the start of the meeting, senior Lucas Nebabze imitates Joebgen. Later, he shares a story about a close family friend who died. He said he remembers playing ping pong with him. And he said he remembers strong adults breaking down at the funeral.
“I didn’t really know how to handle it,” Lucas said.
He's been in the group for four years now, and he wouldn't say it helped him get over his loss. He'd say the group helped him accept it and learn how to talk about it.
“I don’t think I’d ever talk about how I feel without the grief group,” he said.
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For more information about grief support groups for teens, check out Companions on a Journey — a West Chester-based nonprofit that collaborates with Moeller officials on the grief group.
