Sunny’s Story
Sunny sat holding back tears surrounded by nine sobbing campers. As with many first time counselors, she’d been put with the youngest age group. And they were all homesick. It was the first night, the other counselors were at the nightly meeting, and so Sunny sat alone surrounded by sobbing children. She walkie-talkied for help. After everyone calmed down, she established a rule that the girls had to be in bed, lights out, before any counselors left for any night meetings.
Throughout the following week, Sunny’s campers grew to prefer the other counselor– the cool counselor– who didn’t see as much of a need to follow the rules, whose white skin matched their own, and who had a pretty complexion they all hoped to have one day. Still, Sunny went back the next year.
I stare at Sunny as she finishes telling me this. The sun’s beginning to go down behind the next house over. We’re both huddled under blankets, sitting at opposite ends of the table in her backyard, a setup we end up in at least once a week. “You had to basically babysit the other counselor too,” I finally comment.
Sunny laughs. “Or I’ll get lectured later about something our unit did. And I’m not even the one in charge. Like, please leave me alone.” She pulls the blanket tighter around herself.
I grin. “They knew from the get-go that you should be the one running the show.”
Sunny nods, looks away, and changes the subject. But, when she went back to her second year of camp, she went as the director. Now, in her fourth year, she’s the Operations Coordinator.
As the shadows lengthen and the cold sinks in deeper, I ask her what encouraged her to stick around all this time, especially in light of that first week. It seemed to me like she’d poured so much into the kids and they were just rude back, as kids can be. What kept her going?
Sunny’s gaze unfocuses, and she takes a moment to think back. “We have this one night of camp,” she starts to explain, “where the whole camp, all the years, gather together and everyone can talk.” Campers of all ages get the chance to share their stories of loss and heartache and find companionship with their peers who are suffering as they are.
“But then camp comes and it’s like: this is why I do it.”
On this night as they all sat around the campfire, one child in Sunny’s group couldn’t stop crying. Sunny pulled her aside and sat with her, listening to each of the camper’s broken words as they pushed past her sobs.
The camper told Sunny of her fears and pain and of the looming knowledge that she would lose her parent to cancer. The girl explained how she feels like she always needs to be pretending. At home, she doesn’t want to be an extra burden. At school, her peers don’t know how to act around her and everyone’s just happier if she pretends everything is normal.
And Sunny holds onto that moment, and other moments like it. They remind her that though these kids can be assholes and selfish and hard to work with, they’re living through tragedy right now. She has the chance to give them a safe place for a week each summer, a branch to hold onto in the flood they’re swimming in right now.
Throughout the rest of the year, Sunny and the other counselors will get notes from their campers, thanking them for giving them the place to be fully themselves. It reminds Sunny why she does this, why she puts so much work in and why she puts up with how the kids sometimes behave. And so throughout each year, Sunny puts in hundreds of hours to give them that safe place, hoping that it will be something they can hold onto for the rest of their lives.
Sunny looks me in the eye across the table as the sun sinks down behind the horizon and the light from the house illuminates our faces. “It is a lot of work and throughout the year I’ll feel overwhelmed. But then camp comes and it’s like: this is why I do it.”
thoughtswords 