Video Feature: Meet Mackenzie and Tom Houllahan and learn more about how FRIENDS WAY helps children heal.
To 14-year-old Mackenzie Houllahan, the black boot she cradles in both hands is more than just old footwear. That’s because she painted it in memory of her late mother – bright purple with splashes of gold and blue.
“My mom loved the color purple,” she says. “It has some blue specks to represent I'm sad, but the gold is to represent that I’m pushing through.”
Mackenzie decorated the boot during one of the many group activities she has participated in at FRIENDS WAY, where children grieving the loss of a parent can find a safe haven to share their feelings, heal emotionally, and simply be among other kids who understand what it’s like to lose a loved one at an early age.
When Donna Houllahan died in 2015 after an illness, Tom, her husband of 17 years, worried about Mackenzie. She was just starting sixth grade in Warwick at the time -- the same age he was when his own mother passed away. It was only in looking back as an adult that he realized that many of his childhood troubles stemmed from the difficulty he had coping with her death.
“I was acting out,” he says. “I had to take a seat in my principal’s office quite often.”
When he spoke to a friend from Maine, she offered him a tip.
“She mentioned that right down the road from me, less than three miles from my house, was this jewel of a resource for children that have lost a parent or sibling or other significant family member,” says Tom, recounting how he learned about FRIENDS WAY. “We’ve been attending ever since.”
Mackenzie Houllahan and her dad Tom display Tom and Donna's wedding photo. Mackenzie struggled with grief following the loss of her mom.
FRIENDS WAY, part of Gateway Behavioral Healthcare and Lifespan, is the only children and teen’s bereavement program of its kind in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts. Wonderful things take place in the plain, two-story building in Warwick that is home to the free, peer-based support group.
Ryan Loiselle, who has been involved with FRIENDS WAY since it opened in 2000, describes the program as “magical.” He started out volunteering as a student at the University of Rhode Island and stayed on for another 10 years, before being appointed director in 2011.
“Seeing kids heal has been very special for me,” he says. “Our support groups give children, teens and adults caregivers an opportunity to connect with other grieving peers their age. It helps them understand they are not the only ones experiencing grief, that it’s okay to be sad and happy at the same time, that it’s okay to talk about the person who died. It really breaks the silence of grief.”
Through all but the summer months, families visit one weeknight every other week and spend a couple of hours together, first having dinner and then splitting into groups.
One evening, Tom sits down to have pizza with several women he often joins on outings outside of the program. Then, after dinner, when all of the children head downstairs into small groups, he and the other parents sit in a circle and take turns talking about raising their children and their personal lives.
“When we first joined FRIENDS WAY, I thought this was predominantly for Mackenzie, for her to be in a group of kids her own age,” Tom says. “But it didn’t take long to realize that, as they are in their group, we sit around as a group of parents, who are all experiencing the same thing with our children. We’re in the same boat. We can lean on each other.”
Downstairs, Mackenzie has joined the teen group. With their discussion led by trained volunteers, they chat about what they did on their recent school break, how their classes are going and what they might do after high school. All the while, they take turns standing against a wall and tracing their silhouetted profiles on paper. It was on a previous night that Mackenzie painted the black boot.
“We do a lot of expressive arts. We do them to give the kids different opportunities to tap into their feelings, their coping skills and their memories of the people who died,” Loiselle says. “There are some kids who do really well talking, there are others that need to play in the kinetic sand, to paint and draw and mold things.”
Mackenzie says she was struggling after her mom died.
“I had been having a difficult time. I was very close to her. There were people at school who just couldn’t understand what I was going through,” she says.
“My personality changed a lot. I went from being outgoing to being shy and awkward. I felt alone and isolated because I didn’t know people that had gone through that. But when I joined FRIENDS WAY, I met people like me who had gone through these horrible experiences.”
The program made such a noticeable difference to her that she was offered an opportunity to speak at FRIENDS WAY’s annual fund-raising gala. She made sure to mention her mother in her remarks.
“When my dad first told me that her condition had worsened and she might not make it home from the hospital and then, after she died, I didn’t know how life could possibly go on without my mom,” she told the audience that night, when she was just 12. After describing her journey through grief and the friends she has made along the way, she said, “I can’t imagine where I would be if FRIENDS WAY wasn’t there for me.”
Now, three years since coming to FRIENDS WAY, the days when she was brought down by depression have given way to immersing herself in not only schoolwork but drama club, jazz band and mock trial. The Toll Gate High School student plans to continue attending FRIENDS WAY right through graduation and to never cease cherishing her mother.
“She was a very kind woman and she cared about everyone,” Mackenzie says. “I want to live for her. I want to be like her. I want her spirit to live through me.”
