I don’t live all that far from the Oak Tree Corner house, so I find myself driving by the building quite often. Oak Tree Corner is housed in a yellow Cape Cod, situated on a busy corner in Oakwood, the yard full of happy little trees and bright flowers. There’s a sign on the side that reads, “center for grieving children.” I’ve been volunteering there for seven years.
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Oak Tree Corner was founded in 1996 as a place for grieving children and families to find some sort of comfort. Volunteers, or group facilitators, gather twice a month and lead groups of children in activities designed to facilitate discussion about their grief. I work with the youngest group, the Littles, usually aged 4-6, and there are two other groups, the Middles and Teens. The parents meet in a separate group, led by another volunteer. All volunteers go through an extensive and, at times, emotionally exhausting training before leading these groups.
Whenever new volunteers start at Oak Tree Corner, they observe on their first night. It can be overwhelming. Sure, there’s the training, but there’s always some anxiety, especially just starting out, when faced with a group of grieving children. “Will I say the wrong thing?” (Probably not, especially if you let the kids do most of the talking, which is what you’re supposed to do anyway.) “What if someone cries?” (Surprisingly, this hardly ever happens.) “I can’t do this.” (Yes. You can.)
After group, the volunteers gather to share their experiences from the night. On nights when we have new volunteers, the old volunteers take turns sharing why they decided to volunteer with Oak Tree Corner. I always say some variation of the same thing. I heard about Oak Tree Corner from a co-worker. I’d been looking for a place to volunteer where I wouldn’t be relegated to just answering phones or stuffing envelopes, ideally working kids, and this seemed perfect. I was a bit nervous that I would be dealing with children in the midst of the grieving process, but my worrying, as it so often is, was all for naught. Working with these kids has been life changing. It really has.
The last time I drove by the Oak Tree Corner house, I really thought about my answer to that question...“why do I come to Oak Tree Corner?” My answer, given so many times now, has become rote. It’s the real answer, sure, but, since I find it difficult to share my emotions with near strangers, it’s not the real real answer. It’s not the gooey-center-of-my-heart answer.
This past August, I took a new job and I love it. I finally feel like I’m doing something good for the world. But it’s the first job I’ve had where I’ve felt that way. Before that, I didn’t really feel like I was making the world a better place. That’s what drove me to Oak Tree Corner. I wanted to help.
It's been a year since the Boston Marathon bombings, so of course it's been on my mind, like it has for so many others. I, like most people, followed along in horror that day, on Twitter, on Facebook, on the everlasting suck-cycle that is our news media, my stomach sinking as each new piece of information came in. Yet, in the aftermath of this terror, comedian Patton Oswalt posted the following on Facebook:
I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."
But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.
But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.
But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.
So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will."
When I read that then, and when I read it now, I can’t help but think...THAT is why I volunteer. I want to be a part of Oswalt’s vast majority. I want to make the world a better place, in my own tiny way, even if it’s only by volunteering two days a month. It’s often difficult to measure our successes at Oak Tree Corner. It’ll most likely be years or, you know, NEVER before we know if anything we say or do benefits the children we work with. But I have to believe it does. I have to believe in trying to make the world a little brighter, in doing my part to tip the scales to Good. I have to believe that Oak Tree Corner, this small shining light, is really just one of many, a million stars brightening the night sky.
Jennie has been with Oak Tree Corner for seven years. She also works for SICSA Pet Adoption Center. In her spare time, she enjoys reading any book she can get her hands on, writing, and taking countless pictures of her pets.
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