She felt lost when she became a widow in her 20s. Then she signed up to grief camp

When Mackenzie Galloway-Cole saw the reminder in her Google calendar, her first reaction was dread:

Three days, blocked out with two words, in all caps: “GRIEF CAMP.”

Taking a few deep breaths, Galloway-Cole tried to calm her nerves.

Of the two words, it wasn’t the “grief” part that made her panic. The prospect of “camp” was way more daunting.

“I was nowhere near as afraid of talking about grief as I was afraid of being in a new space, doing something new, alone, with new people,” Galloway-Cole tells CNN Travel today.

Galloway-Cole, a New Yorker in her late 20s, is a recent widow. Last November, her wife, Megan, passed away from a sudden cardiac event.

“Losing my wife felt like losing my center of gravity,” says Galloway-Cole. “Everything in the world felt upside down and I felt untethered to reality.”

About a month after Megan’s death, one of Galloway-Cole’s close friends sent her details about Experience Camps, a US-based nonprofit that runs summer camps for grieving kids.

In recent years, Experience Camps has expanded its program to include an annual adults-only grief retreat. When the organization appeared on Galloway-Cole’s radar, Experience Camps was accepting applications for its summer 2024 adult getaway.

Sitting in her parents’ home in Kansas, Galloway-Cole scrolled through the details. The MO, according to Experience Camps, is that bereaved adults gather to “grieve, connect and play” in the beautiful surroundings of a historic summer camp in the Poconos.

On the agenda: traditional camp activities including campfires, arts and crafts and sports –  interspersed with opportunities for grief-based connection and contemplation.

Galloway-Cole wasn’t a camp kid. She spent her childhood and teenage summers taking extra classes at local colleges rather than sitting around a campfire toasting s’mores.

And while camp as a concept sounded fun – at least if Lindsay Lohan in “The Parent Trap” was anything to go by – Galloway-Cole was unsure of the reality of “sleeping in a cabin in bunks with strangers.”

But in the wake of her wife’s death, Galloway-Cole had adopted what she calls a “kitchen sink” attitude to grieving: She’d try pretty much anything in the quest to adjust to her stark new reality.

“At that point, I was also just looking for any sort of way to form connections with other people in the grief space – trying to just create and build a community,” adds Galloway-Cole. “Being a widow in my 20s, I don’t have as many people around me who relate to that grief experience. So, when I found out about the camp, I signed up the day I found out.”

‘A big leap of bravery’

After a phone call with Experience Camps’ program director, Galloway-Cole paid the requisite $425 fee “and then put the dates in my calendar and didn’t think about it too much.”

Then, suddenly – somehow – it was June 2024. Seven months since Galloway-Cole’s wife passed away. Six months since she’d signed up for grief camp.

In that intervening period, Galloway-Cole had waded through the heavy haze of grief to rebuild something of a routine. She’d left the comfort of her parents’ house in Kansas and returned to the New York City apartment she’d once shared with Megan. She’d gone back to her job working in nonprofit communications. She’d reconnected with friends. She’d gone to therapy. She started blogging about her experiences on her Substack, Good Gay Grief.

Life wasn’t easy, but there was some semblance of “new normal” that Galloway-Cole embraced as much as possible.

Interrupting this routine to embark on a grief-focused summer camp was daunting, to say the least. But Galloway-Cole put on her favorite T-shirt, packed her suitcase, mapped out the route via GPS, and readied herself to drive two and half hours northwest to Equinunk, Pennsylvania.  

It was the first time she’d gone on a vacation or trip since her wife died.

“So, that was a big leap of bravery – and a big milestone to pack the car on my own,” says Galloway-Cole.

Galloway-Cole and her wife loved a road trip. (“If it was between a flight or a 10-hour drive, we would usually drive,” she says).

But Galloway-Cole was used to having Megan in the car, by her side.

“There were so many times we would take a 10-hour drive, and we wouldn’t even turn on music, because we would just talk the whole time,” she recalls.

As Galloway-Cole got behind the wheel, she was acutely conscious of the empty passenger seat.

“I got in the car knowing, ‘I don’t have my companion anymore. I don’t have my person. I have to find a way to get through this and do it on my own,’” she says. “And what that looked like for me was I put on a playlist that was high energy, trying to just sing along and keep myself motivated.”

Galloway-Cole sang as loud as she could as she navigated the concrete gridlock of New York City and headed toward the rural greenery of upstate New York. As she crossed the Pennsylvania border and got close to Equinunk, the views out the window got vaster, more verdant.

Parking up at Camp Equinunk and Blue Ridge, her home for the weekend, Galloway-Cole felt her heart hammering in her chest. The nerves were in full swing. But almost immediately, Galloway-Cole began chatting to another recent arrival.

“She turned out to be another camper who was also there for the weekend, who had previously been involved with Experience Camps before – so she knew what she was doing,” says Galloway-Cole. “I told her it was my first time and we talked a little bit about it – so I wasn’t confused for long, there was someone helpful there right away to say, ‘Here. Come with me. I’ll take care of you.’”

This first interaction was indicative of what was to come – Galloway-Cole was immediately welcomed into the fray. Only a couple of hours after arriving, she found herself sitting with other campers, making name necklaces to wear for the weekend.

Threading beads onto the string, Galloway-Cole opted for her nickname “Mac” over her full name “Mackenzie.”

She didn’t usually skip straight to the abbreviation, but Gallowy-Cole figured she was about to share some pretty intimate stuff with her fellow campers, so why not skip the niceties?

Opening up

In the lead up to the weekend, the campers had been sent a schedule of activities, meals and sharing circles.

“I didn’t memorize the schedule,” says Galloway-Cole. “I looked at it once and said, ‘OK, I guess I’ll figure out what all that means when I get there.’ I think it was just a combination of nerves, but also I was open to letting whatever was supposed to happen, happen – and letting go and releasing a bit of the control. Just saying, ‘I’m here, I’m open. And I’m ready to see what this weekend is all about.’”

That first day, Galloway-Cole found herself in a sharing circle with a handful of other campers and tried to embrace this mantra. She listened as other campers were candid about their bereavement experiences, watched as they oscillated between laughter and tears.

Galloway-Cole stood back at first, taking everything in, feeling “every emotion on the emotional spectrum,” but gradually she felt less daunted about the prospect of opening up herself.

“I was able to see how open everyone else was, in sharing their lives and sharing stories and fun tidbits about the people they love who they’ve lost,” she says. “It really empowered me to realize part of what’s going to make this whole weekend so impactful is sharing, is pushing myself to share the hardest parts of my life with the strangers that I just met, minutes or hours ago.”

So, swallowing her nerves, Galloway-Cole started talking. She spoke about her late wife’s love of basketball, and she was heartened by the reactions of her fellow campers. They were encouraging, nodding along. Afterward, someone suggested a game of pick-up basketball. Galloway-Cole was fighting back tears as she dribbled the ball, but she also felt a sense of lightness, a feeling of joy that had eluded her for a long time.

It helped that everyone was so kind and welcoming. Galloway-Cole’s fears about making friends were proved unfounded. While many of the campers knew each other already – either they’d worked as Experience counselors at a kids’ grief camp or attended previous iterations of the adult grief retreat – others were newbies like Galloway-Cole.

And the old-timers and newbies were equally approachable. There were no cliques at grief camp. The campers ranged in age from early 20s to mid-60s, although the majority were around Galloway-Cole’s age, late 20s to early 30s.

In Galloway-Cole’s everyday life, her grief sometimes feels like a stumbling block to connection with other young people – she doesn’t always know when to mention her loss, can’t predict how her peers might react and she’s always conscious being a 20-something widow is relatively unusual, even shocking.

“‘Do I mention it? Do I not? Do I bring it up? Will other people feel uncomfortable? Will it sour the mood? Will someone say something and then I’ll get annoyed that what they said was not what I needed to hear, because they don’t understand what I’m going through …’ Those are all the different types of thoughts that I unconsciously am filtering through constantly,” explains Galloway-Cole.

But at grief camp, everyone was united by loss, and everyone was there to talk about it. Grief was a fast track to connection, not a hurdle.

Over the weekend, Galloway-Cole met other people who’d lost their partners. Others who’d suffered sudden, traumatic loss. Other people in their 20s. Other New Yorkers. Other queer people. She felt a sense of camaraderie and connection that she realized was sometimes lacking in her day-to-day life. While she’s got a great support network of friends and family – who are also grieving the loss of Megan – there was something specifically comforting about meeting people going through the exact same experience.

And while other campers’ stories of loss were heavy, Galloway-Cole says there was also a consolation in knowing they were all supporting one another.

“Grief is so heavy, but it’s the heaviest when you’re holding it on your own,” she says. “And when you do get to share parts of it with others, it’s like they’re helping you hold up this boulder. At grief camp, there were 100 people helping you hold up a boulder, it’s a lot easier to hold than when you’re doing it on your own.”

Marrying joy and sadness

For the Experience Camps team, this idea of mutual support is at the center of everything they do – as is the idea that a moment of intense sharing could be swiftly followed by a freeing, spontaneous game of basketball.

Experience Camps’ years of operating summer camps for grieving kids mean the team puts joy and grief on equal footing.

“Joy and grief belong together,” says Jesse Moss, Experience Camps’ marketing director. “You can’t be 100 percent sad all the time, because you won’t be able to function and heal and grow and you can’t be 100 percent joyful all the time – because then you’re just pushing your grief down. … But I think joy and play really can get rid of your inhibitions, and kind of break you down in the same way that grief can – and so you’re just your most authentic self.”

Experience Camps’ kids camps have been running since 2009, meaning a whole generation of kids has now grown up with the program. The adults’ retreat launched in 2022, inspired by feedback from the organization’s adult volunteers. Many of them had their own grief stories, but they didn’t have much opportunity to share them with one another, given their responsibilities at the kids camp.

The pilot iteration of the adults retreat was exclusive to Experience Camps volunteers. There were around 30 attendees. In 2023, they extended the remit, opening up the retreat to any adults 21 and over who’d experienced the loss of a parent, caregiver or sibling. Some 60 people signed up.

In 2024, the parameters expanded to include anyone dealing with the death of someone important to them, and more than 100 campers gathered for the weekend. According to Experience Camps, interest continues to grow with many people discovering the program via TikTok. The adult camp is oversubscribed, and Experience Camps are looking at ways of expanding the program.

Experience Camps isn’t the only organization to run grief retreats – take Camp Widow, which hosts conference-style events for people grieving a partner across the country, or the kids-focused Comfort Zone Camp.

But most of the grief retreat options available for adults don’t include “silly dances and an egg drop competition,” two highlights of Galloway-Cole’s June weekend.

Experience Camps, which relies on donations and volunteers, also prides itself on its relative accessibility. The kids camp is free, and the adults camp costs $425 a person inclusive of all meals and activities, with adult scholarships available on a case-by-case basis.

While some adult grief retreats lean into the luxury, wellness angle, Experience Camps firmly believes the less glamorous structure of summer camp lends itself perfectly to the grief space.

Speaking to CNN Travel, the Experience Camps team suggests that embracing your inner child via games, campfire singalongs, dance competitions and friendship bracelets is the ideal counterpart to heavier moments of reflection and contemplation. These activities are a break from routine – from jobs, adult responsibilities, day-to-day mundanity.

The only real difference between the kids program and the adult version, says Moss, is the adults have more freedom to do their own thing – and don’t have to be told when to brush their teeth or go to bed.

“In your personal life, you don’t get to be silly, and do competitions and make up dances with your friends anymore. That was something 10 year olds did. But at this camp weekend, you’re talking about your grief, but you’re also making up dances with your friends,” says Moss. “It’s a really nice balance of nurturing your grief, nurturing your inner child, playing again and being vulnerable and meeting people who are like you.”

Michelle Cove, Experience Camps’ director of communications, suggests campers are also better able to navigate their way through tougher moments of reflection and contemplation because they always know “joy and play is going to be on the other side of it.”

“That’s really conducive for having these discussions, which you may or may not have if you’re at a spa retreat with your girlfriends,” Cove tells CNN Travel.

The team suggests traveling is a great way of helping to process trauma, too. And it helps when the surroundings are so beautiful. Galloway-Cole calls the campground a “much needed and wanted change of pace” compared with life in New York City.

“There’s greenery everywhere,” describes Galloway-Cole. “There’s a lake, a big green lawn and there’s a flagpole that we meet around every morning.”

During her time at camp, Galloway-Cole went for a solo walk around the grounds before each day’s activities began.

“I would cross the bridge and head over to the lake. I would sit there, on the docks and just breathe some fresh air, center myself, wake up,” she recalls. “It was really just a beautiful and tranquil way to start my day, every morning, to be alone with myself and my thoughts and try to connect with my wife a little bit before diving into a packed day.”

Making connections

Experience Camps’ kids camps have always been places where friendship thrives, and the Experience Camps team are happy to see this reflected in the adult campers’ experiences so far.

“The crossover between the kids camp and the adult camp is the word ‘lonely,’” says Cove. “How lonely it is to be grieving. … And so having this space – whether it’s for kids at camp or adults at camp – just to be with everybody who gets it, that’s the star player.”

Since her wife passed away, one of Galloway-Cole’s struggles is the idea that new people she meets won’t get to meet Megan.

“I feel like they will never know this huge part of me,” she says.

But at grief camp, because she was encouraged to speak about Megan freely, Galloway-Cole felt as though she had introduced her partner to her new friends.

On the last night of the retreat, the campers enjoyed some drinks and dancing. Toward the end of the evening, Chappell Roan’s song “Hot To Go” started blaring out of the speaker.

For Galloway-Cole, this was both a joyous moment and a “gut punch.” The couple went to see the pop artist live last October, not long before Megan passed away.

Since then, Chappell Roan has become a chart-climbing, global star. For Galloway-Cole, it’s surreal and sad that Megan isn’t able to witness one of her favorite artists hit the mainstream.

In her normal life, Galloway-Cole might have swallowed down these thoughts and feelings – might have worried voicing them aloud would kill the vibe, worried about people’s reactions.

But at grief camp, Galloway-Cole didn’t have these hesitations. Instead, she shouted over the music to her new friends: “This was the last concert Megan went to before she died!”

Rather than feeling like she’d brought down the mood of the room, Galloway-Cole felt like she’d just introduced Megan into the room. Her friends hugged her, cheered and the group spontaneously toasted Megan.

It’s a moment Galloway-Cole’s thought about a lot since returning home.

“Megan’s passing doesn’t change the things she loved, it doesn’t change the things we got to do together. And being able to just talk about her and who she was, and who she always will be, openly, I think is something that I will definitely bring more into my life.”

The experience at grief camp led Galloway-Cole to realize she can “continue to introduce people to my wife, even though she’s not with us anymore.”

She loves it when her grief camp friends reach out to mention something that’s made them think of Megan, whether it’s basketball news or pop music updates.

“Those are people that never got to meet her and know her while she was alive. But even they, through what I share with them, feel like they now have a connection to her,” says Galloway-Cole.

“That has been so impactful to hear from other people, and to see that she really does continue to be with me, and I can continue to bring her and introduce her to every person in my life that I come across.”

Galloway-Cole and her fellow campers are already planning future meet-ups and weekend trips together – as well as hopefully reuniting for the 2025 Experience Camps’ adult grief retreat. Next year’s applications aren’t live yet, but those interested can still sign up to be the first to receive information.

Galloway-Cole’s also enjoyed sharing stories of grief camp with her friends and loved ones back home. She wrote a piece called “Grief Camp is My Happy Place,” for her Substack, describing her experiences. She set up a new, public Instagram to document her thoughts and feelings.

“I think a lot of people hear ‘grief camp’ and think it’s going to be sad all the time. They think, ‘Oh, that sounds awful, or how sad.’ Meanwhile, I feel like I came back from grief camp, and I was the happiest and the lightest I had been since my wife passed, because I got to have such a joyous release,” says Galloway-Cole.

“We got to have those hard conversations, but also got to really experience community and connection and joy. And realize that it’s OK for all of these things to coexist, because that’s just what grief and a life with grief looks like.”

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