Conrad Liu

I didn’t hear about my Kesem until the end of my freshman year of college at Rice when the summer was rolling around. My friend, MuShu, told me about Kesem and said they had a sudden need for counselors, so I just signed up and went to camp. 

When I first came to camp, I was definitely really excited and challenged by the experience. I had a lot to learn when it came to being able to have and navigate these difficult conversations with kids and open up a space for them to feel safe. Since camp serves kids from 6-18, there’s a lot of variety in the interactions that you’ll have within the same age group, let alone the entire spectrum of ages. But I wanted to grow to meet that challenge, being able to be there for anyone and everyone. I remember the bus to camp that year and being with all these kids who I have never met before, many who have never met each other, and I was so intimated. I didn’t know if I would be able to connect with these kids or allow for them to connect with each other. But, over the course of that two and a half hour bus ride, if you let these kids be themselves and who they want to be, they’re going to have a good time. They’re going to laugh and play and create games and teach you and really it’s just about facilitating that space for them, to get comfortable and to start connecting. It was incredible to see that kind of community that they were able to create with very little help from us. That’s amazing and humbling and for us to be able to step in and facilitate that is really a special thing. The kids honestly do so much of that work themselves by being themselves with one another and sharing that with you. And this was all just on that one bus ride. I learned a lot on that first day and that first year of camp.

And at camp, the kids all choose their own names. I love that! They’re so ridiculous and fun. My first year at camp I had the 12 year olds in my unit and there was this one very sweet and shy camper who was new and didn’t have a camp name yet, so we tried to come up with one with her. We asked if she liked any music groups, any animals, sports, movies, etc. But she just kept shaking her head and saying no. But then when we asked her what her favorite food was she said “Enchilada” so firmly and resolutely that that became her camp name and has been ever since and year after year when I see her I still think back to that story. There are so many other interesting names like Turkey-Peanut or MyNameIsJeff, but, at the end of the day, the goal of these names it to have kids create a fun identity for themselves and a name that whenever they hear, recalls and reminds them of camp and reminds them of a fun and playful place where they can be themselves and not labeled as just “the kid whose parent has cancer.”

While I’m not affected by a parent’s cancer, my motivation to give more to this organization and to this community was only strengthened when my lifelong family friend and former piano teacher passed away from lunch cancer. She had a six-year-old at the time and I was was going to camp as the Red Unit leader for 6-8 year olds. Reflecting on the challenge of navigating this experience when you’re too young to understand how that really shapes your life strengthened my resolve to give more of myself to camp, seeing how that loss has an impact on a family and a young child that I was so familiar with and grew up with. Of course, when setting foot in camp, I was already sold and already committed to these kids, but I just grew closer and closer to the cause with time as changes and losses happened in the lives of people around me and to myself. And the week before that second year, I remember shopping at Target for last minute costume supplies for camp when I got a phone call from a parent whose kids had just gotten off the waitlist at the last minute. They had lost their father ten days prior and the mother was calling me, telling me how much it meant to her that we were able to take in her kids and offer this experience to them. I was so overwhelmed with gratitude in that moment for being able to create that community for her sons who had been through so much and I remember how worried she was and how she was expressing her peace of mind knowing that her sons will be in a a place where they can be happy and be kids and be around people who understand what they’re going through which is unfortunately really hard to find. It was a really special thing and I told her that I would do whatever it takes to watch over, take care, and get to know her sons that week. 

And unfortunately, this situation isn’t unique. I remember a couple days before the start of camp my third year, hearing about a camper family who had just lost their mother a few days ago. As outreach coordinator that year, I was trying to plan for what might happen and kept in touch with them about whether they would be coming to camp. They did end up coming to camp and while I was surprised at first, that these kids would come to camp and engage with it just a couple days after their loss, it became so clear after seeing them in person that this was the best decision that they could have made for themselves. To be able to face such a horrible loss and then immediately be put in a place where you are told that it’s ok to also have fun, to still be a kid, to still laugh even though your mother has just passed away. You deserve to be happy and to be free and to enjoy your life through and past that loss and I think that was the best thing that they could have done in that moment and the joy of seeing them be themselves and make connections and laugh and play games that year was a reminder that they still deserve their childhood and that they can still have it here at camp.

What makes Kesem that community that it is, is the commitment that people have to coming in with that open mind and total acceptance of what they’re going to experience and who they’re going to meet. Being free of judgement and allowing people to be themselves, or at least achieve that by the end of their camp experience, that’s really unique. Kesem is a space where kids can meet others of all ages who have gone through very similar experiences that their friends in school might not understand, and they create and hold onto those friendships that last year after year. There’s no wrong way to process at camp, there’s no wrong way to grieve, we’ve seen it all but for this place to be a place where kids can laugh and play and be kids and find joy even though the darkest moments in their lives and a place where they can be free to cry and support their new friends and listen to each other’s stories and share their own stories, that’s special. To be able to grow up in a community where people say, “I get it. I’ve been through that too and it’s hard. I’m here for you” really is life changing and magic.

There’s this concept of Kesem magic and it’s something that’s really hard to describe, but the magic of Kesem first resonated with me when I heard some campers describe Kesem as home. Seeing that resonate year after year at camp and throughout my time for both kids and counselors, this whole community is home. For the kids, this is the only place and only time, the only week in the entire year, that they will say out loud that they have lost a parent and what that has meant for them. For kids who have gone through something really difficult, they’re able to be in a place where it’s safe and it’s okay and it’s encouraged for them to be kids, to have fun, to be silly. I’ve seen that time and time again by the comfort that people feel when they’re able to return and it really does feel like you’re returning, even if it’s your first time, the environment of camp is something so familiar that by the last day everyone is already to come back, wishing that camp was longer, or that the next camp would just come sooner. That’s incredibly heartwarming. And in the student community, we talk about these kids and share these memories all the time, calling each other by our camp names too. This is who we are now, people are transformed by camp and by sharing that with others, there’s this familiarity that comes with that. I’ve seen that from chapter to chapter across the country and at other camps. Kesem is a place where there’s already a mutual understanding of what you’re going through, an environment and community that’s established that’s bigger than just yourself or your specific chapter, it’s everyone that’s in it. The notion of home, the idea of home, comes with so much power. Home is a place where you can be yourself and however you want to be, where you can relax, you can do what you want without anyone judging. It’s a place where you can be comfortable. It’s a place where you feel a sense of familiarity and belonging. It spans different schools, cities, states, but the community of Kesem stays with people beyond camp. Home is always a place you belong no matter where you go and a place that you can always return to and that is the root of Kesem. 

I did Kesem throughout the year every year, it was always a given that I was coming back. In college, I was pre-med but I studied. Coming in, I knew that it would be important for me that everything I did outside of class and everything else I spent my time doing was what mattered the most to me and was the biggest part of my identity, so I really tried to adhere to that as an art major and also with my involvement with Camp Kesem. It became so clear early on that there was no other option. This wasn’t temporary, this was a part of me and I couldn’t even entertain the possibility of discontinuing my involvement with Kesem because I could see that we were growing this community and I was growing too. And so I was further involved, as a counselor, as a unit leader, as outreach coordinator, and as director. There are a lot of doubts coming in as director, about whether you can provide this space and make this camp successful but that decision was constantly reaffirmed from kids telling me how much they look forward to camp to parents telling me how much their kids have transformed in that one week or one year from being in the Kesem community. I’ve seen entire families lives changed again and again as a result of this community and so I knew that I was in the right place.

That last day was such a beautiful experience, to end my time at my chapter with this incredible team with the most kids we’ve ever had, 130 campers, was incredible. I passed around a blank Kesem shirt to sign for campers that I had known for years and really cherished that. I really couldn’t believe that this wouldn’t be a place that I would come back to every year. So after leaving and coming to medical school halfway across the country, I still booked the first ticket that I could to come back to the first Friends and Family day to see those kids again and it was like I hadn’t left. For these kids, they might not think about where you are now, where you’re living, or what your life is like but if you’re there you’re their counselor and you’re back in their lives and their community so I really cherished that and try to stay connected. And having so many roles through Kesem, I really had the privilege of seeing my chapter grow through so many different perspectives that I felt like it had to go somewhere and not just stay with me as my own experience, so it was important that where I went next had a chapter I could support, and that’s how I found Duke and how I continue to stay involved and to support as and advisory board member even beyond my time as a undergraduate.

So for counselors who have never worked with kids to this degree, for those who feel like they’re not equipped to take this on, open your minds and open yourselves to the possibility of learning from the people around you. I saw really great counselors and learned so much from just seeing how they were able to be there for the kids, redirect them when they were having a rough time, make them laugh, settle any conflicts, facilitate any games, create silly games. really just do incredible work and that’s inspired me. There’s just so much compassion and support in this community from both the counselors and the campers so trust that you will learn and grow and change if you open yourself up to the people. Let that magic work through you and you will change too.

I have always carried this notion that I could leave camp, but camp would never leave me and that’s so true. I know that this will always be a part of me and a place that I will always call home. There’s a sense of familiarity and belonging at camp like no other, that makes all things that seem ordinary and unexpected so familiar and comfortable. It’s just a place you want to come back to. Kesem is home.

-Miranda “Moose” Morris, Rice University Class of 2019

To hear about the talent show and the story of the homesick camper as well as other empowering stories of why camp is like home, check out the full interview with Moose below!