Finn’s Story
Finn’s letter to supporters of the NCCG
Dear Friends,
I’m Finn Harrison and my dad Andy died when I was only 6 years old.
He was on a soccer field when he suddenly dropped to the ground with a massive heart attack. One day our dad was there, larger than life. The next he wasn’t. He was gone.
There were four of us kids. Four kids under 10 and we were all left in shock. How could this happen?
The pain of grief is something that never leaves you. But with the right support, I’ve learned that it’s something you learn to live with, not something that defines how you live.
I know I am the person I am today because of the help of A Friend’s Place at the National Centre for Childhood Grief (NCCG). The counsellors and volunteers helped my whole family work through the extreme heartache and pain we felt after the death of our dad. We all grieved differently. Even within our little family, all our stories have been written differently.
As a kid, when someone dies you feel very alone. Everything is bottled up because it’s too hard and painful to process. The specialised grief counsellors truly understand, and they helped my family start to feel that we could cope. These amazing people provided the space where talking could begin. The more we talked, the more we would remember, and eventually feel like we could survive our loss.
The NCCG is a place where you can reconnect. There are many other children there who are going through similar experiences and knowing you are not alone, you can start to have conversations that before, were too unbearable.
Everything we were able to access at the NCCG was funded by the community.
My family would not have been able to have the counselling or go to the camps and gatherings if we had to pay for it all. I am so grateful for people like you who have generously supported the NCCG.
You have played a vital role in helping families like mine. Please take advantage of tax time and give so that more children like me, who are faced with unbearable loss and grief, can survive and become resilient.
Honestly this organisation urgently needs funds to continue to run the programs that helped me so much.
Please give what you can.
Thank you, Finn
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Contact
For additional information or to discuss your personal interests, please contact:
Chris Waugh
Head of Development
1300 654 556