I started off the school year with the death of former student. Unfortunately, I’m ending the school year with the death of a staff member. The death, another car accident, occurred over the weekend and I dreaded going to work on Monday. Senseless tragedies depriving us of vibrant lives lived.

It is said that when grieving we need to do something physical as it gives us power over the situation in which we feel powerless.

When a former high school student, Anil, died students came to the library to make memorial buttons to be worn at Homecoming and throughout the numerous memorial events that occurred during the year. It was a very cathartic experience. I still see buttons on staff lanyards and on student backpacks. It’s oddly comforting.

Recently while still feeling sad and contemplating ideas for a new end of year bulletin board, I thought this would be my opportunity to express myself. But why stop there? Why not invite others to participate. So a simple activity to provide a colorful distraction in honor of a colorful woman thus became an interactive art display.

These experiences got me thinking about grief and bereavement and the librarian’s role. When my children were young and their first dog died the very first thing I did was to run to the public library for bibliotherapy. We needed a copy of The Tenth Good Thing About Barney (Viorst), Dog Heaven (Rylant),  and stack of other related titles.  Libraries comfort us, they heal us. Psyches iatreion is roughly translated as “Healing Place for the Soul”; this phrase was found inscribed on an ancient Greek library. I  read aloud to three distraught little boys, we made our ‘Good Thing’ lists and decorated them. We grieved through doing, through making something.

Working in a school setting we are fortunate to have social workers, psychologists and counselors. However, librarians should never overlook their usefulness in this area.

In typical librarian fashion I love to curate. I also love to make and create. And unfortunately I’m not immune to grief.  I’ve gathered sources and ideas so that I could direct students and others to help themselves. Please feel free to use this list: http://hslibguides.islipufsd.org/grief and look for my upcoming article in Teacher-Librarian regarding this topic (Seymour, G. (2016, May/June). The Compassionate Makerspace: Grief and Healing in a High School Library Makerspace. Teacher Librarian.)