Teen struggles to cope with nightmare of father's death

As the weather grew frigid and the dates on the calendar rolled closer to her 16th birthday, all the teen could feel was the loss of her father, Don, who had died in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center.

"We were so close," recalled Cecelia, a parishioner of St. Clement's in Saratoga Springs. "He always joked that he'd have a car waiting with a bow in the driveway on my birthday -- but now I can't even see him again."

Lost love

Even after he became a bank analyst at the World Trade Center, Mr. Kauth worked out a deal with his employer that allowed him to spend four days in New York City and three in Saratoga, so that he could remain close to Cecelia and her three older siblings.

On Sept. 11, 2001, however, Cecelia watched the twin towers fall on national television.

"I saw it live," she said. "I realized I was watching my father go down with the building. I never knew what the scenario was for him. I didn't know if he had to suffer. I had a lot of nightmares for a long time."

Getting help

Although Cecelia had watched her best friend's brother die of a brain tumor two months before, her father's death would become her first personal encounter with loss. The two friends would grieve together, even though their experiences were radically different.

"It was such a public event," Cecelia said of 9/11. "It wasn't a private place where I could just say goodbye to him, and we could prepare for it" like her best friend could.

Grief descends

Two months later, however, the cards and flowers stopped coming, and Cecelia felt alone. "It was just my mom and me in this big house," she said. "My brothers and sisters went back to what they were doing. Things settled down, and people got back to their lives."

That was impossible for her. "[My family and I] had this pit in our stomach all of December," she recalled. "We were all trying to be normal, and we weren't ready yet. We were on our own."

At school, Cecelia encountered whispers and stares. "People get nervous. They don't know what to say," she said. "They're completely uncomfortable, and you can sense it."

She remembers walking down the hall and hearing the words: "There's the girl whose father died in 9/11."

Wave Riders

At Wave Riders' seven-session program, the teens shared their losses, came to grips with their emotions, learned how to adjust to change, and discovered how to deal with anger, guilt, depression and grief -- feelings which many teens haven't felt before and don't really know how to process or understand.

"We all understood each other and how we were trying to cope with the insanity of it all," explained Cecelia.

At first, Cecelia thought that she would have a hard time discussing what it was like to lose her father in the 9/11 disaster, especially in a room full of strangers.

But, "I just told my story and felt comfortable telling it," she explained. "Every time I left that meeting, I felt a sense of relief and a sense of being happier. You get it out. It was just a time for us to go and get the world off our shoulders."

Spiritual search

"I do believe there's something after," she said. "There's got to be something. But there's always the question of 'what if?' Am I ever going to see him again? Is it going to be like it was? Can I sit on his lap and have some laughs, and can he cook for me? I ask myself these questions, and I don't know if I have the answers -- and I don't know if anyone else does, either.

"It's been a tough year. Every once in a while, it's like a rewind. You take one step forward, but two steps back. There's no future for me and my Dad, and that's what is the hardest thing: thinking of forever."

(To be a Wave Rider, according to the program's coordinator, Candice VanRoey, is to be able to "ride the waves of grief together. Like an ocean, the waves of shock, pain, confusion and loneliness may be present in surges." Teens don't always see death as a possibility, she said, adding: "When someone close to them dies, they're in shock, and have to take a look as to how they evaluate their own lives. They don't know what to do with their feelings." For information on Wave Riders, call 285-8157.)

(11-07-02) [[In-content Ad]]