Katie (center) and her fellow TCR peers, May 2008
TCR Board Member Katie Gorczyca looks back at her time as a teen and how she’s stayed involved and connected through the years.
By Katie Gorczyca
I was twelve when my sixteen-year-old brother, Danny, died in a car crash a half mile down the road from my house on a Thursday evening in April. Despite having supportive family and friends, it was a very confusing and lonely time for me.
It wasn’t until I was sixteen that I started going to The Children’s Room. Apprehensive at first, I was sure I had done all my grieving by that point, and I knew everything there was to know (about everything). But once I stepped foot into the big yellow house on the corner in Arlington, I felt a sense of comfort I hadn’t felt before. I joined their teen program, which, at the time, was a teen performance troupe. Joining this group fostered a sense of belonging that I hadn’t felt before. I had a group of peers whose lives were also turned upside down, and here we were, coming together, talking about it, and creating something special around our experiences. In my mixed-up, self-exploratory, confusing, pre-adolescent grief, I turned to art in every sense of the word: music, visual arts, dance, and writing, asI had been for years, but now I wasn’t alone anymore.
Katie (bottom, center) and a group of peers go to the Celtics game with TCR 2009.
Going to The Children’s Room as a teen was so impactful for me that I returned to TCR a year after graduating high school and asked if they would ever consider an undergraduate intern. I was in a nearby school studying expressive arts therapy and needed an internship. The thought of being able to return to TCR in another capacity motivated me to see if they’d be willing to add on an undergraduate internship program. By the fall of my sophomore year, I was back at the house and co-facilitating peer groups. It was an incredible experience, and at the end of the year, though I knew at the time I had to move on to other internship sites, I knew I’d return soon.
As part of her internship in college, Katie brought the teen performance troupe to her school to perform in 2011.
Fast forward a few years ahead, and I signed up to be a volunteer for the TCR teen events program. I loved helping out at these events; it was incredible to see these teens from different communities come together. While we connected in that we all had a loved one die, the experience was truly about being together with peers as whole people and simply having fun together. There’s something to be said about being in a neutral environment where the roles you play don’t matter, the facades you wear during school and extracurriculars come down, and you can just be yourself with others. The pressure lifts. You can relax just a little bit.
Katie and her husband at a TCR event in 2017.
In 2017, I joined the Board of Directors at The Children’s Room, and the last six years have provided me with endless opportunities to see and feel the impact that TCR has on kids and their families. Furthermore, it’s allowed me to process how much TCR meant to me throughout my adolescence and adulthood.
When I think about my teen years, the third floor of The Children’s Room often comes to mind, and the hours I spent there connecting and creating with my peers. I have so many fond memories of my time at TCR. I think about how TCR helped me find my voice after being quiet, lost, and lonely for so long. I think about how those two years at TCR served as a springboard of meaning and purpose as I moved through college and adulthood. I’m grateful to have grown up knowing that it is okay to talk about my brother who died, it’s okay to honor his memory and make space for hard moments, and it’s okay if the grief changes and feels different each year. I’m grateful to have grown up knowing that I’m not alone. I attribute so much of how I approach loss and grief to my connection and time at The Children’s Room, and I know I will always continue to be involved.
