How do you mend a broken heart?

(JNS) - Anna hugs a battery-powered cat named Ginger. Seeing the social, friendly and positive child full of hugs, one would never guess the horrors she experienced during the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas massacre. How she hid for hours as she waited for someone to rescue her while her mother's bloody body blocked the closet door where she hid, and her father's lifeless body lay just a few feet away.

We've read the headlines and stories. We remember those who were interviewed, giving voice to their traumatic experiences and sharing memories of lost loved ones. 

Yet there are myriad untold, heartbreaking stories.

On the weekend of Dec. 14, the OneFamily organization, founded by Marc and Chantal Belzberg to help the victims of terrorism, hosted a weekend away for Anna and other orphans like her who lost both parents, and for the families who are now raising them.

The therapeutic weekend in Tel Aviv offered family time with much-needed recreation and relaxation, as well as practical skills workshops on releasing tension and anger and time management. There were plenty of meaningful opportunities to socialize, share stories, sing and cry together, and also to dance and laugh together.

Among the orphan group are 29 children who have lost parents in the last 14 months. This does not include children waiting to hear whether or not their hostage parent is alive, nor does it include the 20 orphans of both parents, ages 18-25, who are considered to be adults.

We can see this in the story - just one of the many - that made headlines this year when a couple was killed when a rocket struck their car as they drove home on the Golan. We heard their young adult son voice positivity and gratitude to his parents for his upbringing and the support system surrounding him and his siblings.

But behind the headlines? A father of three was murdered. He was also a son, a brother, a nephew and an uncle. A mother of three was murdered. She was also a daughter, a sister, a niece and an aunt.

Their oldest child felt ready to talk to the world. His two younger siblings had their own basket of sorrow and strived to find a way to go on.

Each loss brings its unique challenges, especially when it involves very young children who have lost parents. The immediate family steps in to look after them while readjusting to life themselves, often the sister or brother of one of the murdered parents.

As they try to navigate building trust and safety for a traumatized child and help their own older children adjust, they are also learning how to wade through the bureaucracy of assistance, rights and paperwork. While they juggle therapies and appointments, they need to find some corner for their own grief.

Ellie is a grandmother who has no time for her broken heart or to comfort her grieving husband after Hamas terrorists murdered their daughter and son-in-law at the Supernova music festival. She also does not have the time she would like to spend in support of her surviving adult daughter, who just gave birth. She is overwhelmed by helping her two lost, hurting young grandsons find a way to channel their loss and anger and forge new lives.

Events like OneFamily's weekend retreat provide much-needed respite for the children, their caregivers, and newly blended families. It's a chance to relax and recharge, laugh and cry, and get together with similar families.

These families continue to meet as a group on a monthly basis through OneFamily's tailored activities and trips. They form a significant bond through their shared experiences and begin to look after one another.

"The weekend (and other activities) is part of a larger therapeutic program that accompanies these families for a lifetime," explains OneFamily CEO Chantal Belzberg.

"We equip them with the tools they need and instill resilience, empowering them to conquer each week and month, one step at a time. We foster a sense of community, where they not only support one another but also continue to uplift each other along the journey."

It impacts a village

What emerges from each particular set of challenges is that it takes a village to fight the darkness with the power of togetherness.

It takes a village of relatives working together to keep each other strong, as well as those outside the family. Therapists in and out of school, the community, and organizations like OneFamily whose support goes beyond the nice getaway, are essential in helping the families cope.

Research has shown that treating trauma with "shared experience" is highly impactful. Indeed, through years of working with victims of terrorism in Israel, this has proven to be one of the most potent and therapeutic tools used by OneFamily.

This began after several families were affected by terrorist attacks during the First Intifada of 1987-1993 in which both parents were murdered. In many cases, the children witnessed the death of their parents. OneFamily reached out to several families to bring these children together.

Ella Danon is the OneFamily staff therapist responsible for the orphans of both parents, and the families raising them. She navigates the needs of parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles-and the children. In some cases, she finds creative ways to convince them that they can't grieve and "do it all" and that it is more than okay to ask for and accept help.

Danon is in touch with many of the children by phone daily. She wants them to know she is there for them, giving the caregivers the space to decide what is helpful.

For the first day of the weekend retreat, Danon distributed white kites for the children to decorate.

"We are going to release the kites high up in the sky, straight up to the heavens, and then bring them back down," she told the children. Some simply wrote messages to their parents on their kites. There was no need to explain further. 

Anna flew her kite with the help of new friends; some were teens doing their national service at OneFamily, and others were newly orphaned kids who befriended the wide-eyed little girl.

"We all have a string that ties us together," Danon told the retreat attendees. "Sometimes you can see it, and sometimes it's an invisible string. We know it's there. And that's us, here for each other. Forever."