Three years ago, my best friend’s dad died from cancer.
Two weeks later, she attempted suicide.
Even now, when I look back to the night when I was waiting for
her to have her stomach pumped, the feelings of nausea, confusion
and guilt all rush back. I say guilt specifically because I blamed
myself for not being there for her.
When I visited my friend at the hospital, I finally realized
that I had no idea how to deal with the situation, and the feeling
of helplessness just made me even more frustrated. During an
emotional breakdown, my friend let it all out. She felt guilty for
her dad’s death, and for the same unknown reason that I
blamed myself, she blamed herself. The difference lay in the fact
that she believed that suicide was her only option.
I distinctly remember looking at her, swamped by the sterile
white sheets of the hospital and the machines periodically beeping
around her, and telling her to stop crying, while wishing that I
had seen the signs earlier. But now that I have finally come to
grips with what happened, I’ve accepted the fact that I was
only 15 and that is why I had no idea how to cope with the entire
situation. To say the least, I was overwhelmed. Even so, I was
significantly older than a number of kids who have to live with a
parent who has cancer. In fact, 1,372,910 new cancer cases are
expected in 2005, and approximately 570,280 Americans will die from
cancer this year. That’s more than 1,500 people a day. Even
if only half these victims have families, the number is still
staggering. But there’s hope ““ a group of dedicated and
enthusiastic UCLA students are planning to start a camp, Camp
Kesem, for these kids. “Kesem” means
“magic” in Hebrew, and as the name suggests, the camp
aims at “bringing magic to families coping with
cancer.” Camp Kesem was originally the brainchild of
undergraduate students at Stanford University who started the
program five years ago. Those two undergraduates now attend UCLA
Medical School, and this is where the UCLA coordinators, Bryn Pyke
and Liz Garcia, met them and decided to initiate a camp at UCLA.
And their reasons behind the project go beyond a mere “it
looks good on my resume.” As Pyke, a second-year
psycho-biology student, aptly put it, “I was excited to start
an organization that would reach out to our community, support
cancer-stricken families and provide an opportunity for a
demographic of children that is often overlooked.”
Providing an opportunity is exactly what this camp aims at
achieving. Not more than eight months since the idea was first
conceived, and now less than a few weeks from the start of the
first camp session ever, the entire team has come a long way. But
in addition to hard work and determination, they bring a wealth of
personal experience as well. For example, the mother of one of the
committee chairs has cancer herself. Darshan Sanghrajka, one of the
counselors, echoes that sentiment. He says that the
counselors’ own experiences help achieve one of the bigger
goals of the camp ““ bolstering self-esteem in kids. When I
first heard this, I was rather surprised. Low self-esteem is not
the first thing that comes to my mind when dealing with kids from
cancer-stricken families. But it turns out I had made the same
mistake most people make ““ misunderstanding the kids coming
from such a background. Pyke and Jill Salisbury also addressed
this, saying that kids in situations like these tend to
under-perform relative to their peers. They also mentioned how most
people don’t understand what the real cause of the problem
is, and at times, the kids themselves don’t even understand
what is wrong with them. I’m no child psychologist, but I can
say that kids are extremely cognizant of their surroundings and can
detect even the slightest disturbance in their families. Moreover,
they tend to internalize their feelings. In this way, when kids are
struck by tragedy, their childhoods are unfairly taken away. Camp
Kesem aims to remedy this. As Salisbury put it, “They can
have fun and not feel guilty about it.” The week-long camp is
all about kids getting involved in activities and just forgetting
about their stressful lives at home. And these kids get to share
their experiences with other kids who are in the same boat as
them.
As of right now, the camp has 22 counselors and over 20 kids but
they are looking for more kids. So if you know a child who would
enjoy this experience, I encourage you to refer him or her to this
camp. The camp is completely free and, from what previous campers
have said, it’s the greatest experience ever. I know I wish
support organizations like this had existed in Saudi Arabia when I
was growing up because it would have been a huge help to my friend.
Maybe she didn’t have to go through all that she did.
Feeling altruistic or have more questions about Camp Kesem?
Go to CampKesemUCLA.org or e-mail Saxena at
ssaxena@mail.media.ucla.edu.