WESTWOOD—Westwood Regional Middle School guidance counselor Caitlin “Ms. Fab” Fabrocini completed the 2022 TCS New York City Marathon, Sunday, Nov. 6.
She ran the event in 341 minutes. With 50,000 runners, and spectators all along the 26.2-mile route and across the globe, the world’s largest marathon said it “celebrated the powerful comeback of New York City.”
The district posted of her run, “Although that accomplishment itself is a cause for celebration, Ms. Fabrocini raised approximately $5,000 for Comfort Zone Camp [comfortzonecamp.org], a nonprofit bereavement organization that transforms the lives of children who have experienced the loss of a parent, sibling, primary caregiver, or significant person.”
It added, “Way to go, Ms. Fabrocini!”
Fabrocini, 33, of Hawthorne, told Pascack Press on Nov. 10, “I certainly would never have run a marathon — any marathon — if it were not for this cause. That was my sole motivation.”
She said this marathon was more of a slog, with rising heat and humidity, than she had trained for, and admitted “brutal is a hard word” but apt.
“But to experience the New York City Marathon for the first time — I would go back and do that over and over and over again,” she said.
She said of the community surrounding the event, “It’s remarkable for humanity. I think if you ever had a question about where we’re headed, or who we are as a people, there’s so much beauty in what I saw.”
A volunteer with Comfort Zone Camp since 2012, starting as an intern as an undergraduate at Montclair State University, Fabrocini said she was “blown away to see that the camp program is put on by nine paid staff members nationally, and I was showing up to a weekend put on by 70–80 adult volunteers, who spend their weekend helping grieving children.”
She said “It became apparent that the donations to make the camp free for the children and their families was so needed.”
Fabrocini said, “I’ve been a very active volunteer with Comfort Zone Camp, but at the time I’d never lost someone that I loved. I had never experienced grief. And then as my adulthood continued I did start to lose family members and college friends.”
At camp, she said, “kids get to share their story and make connections related to the good and bad of grief. We learn coping skills, identify our feelings, and agree that its OK to cry, and to laugh.”
And she said, “We’re not looking to ‘cure’ grief, we’re just looking to provided a space where we can provide relief so that children can grief, and heal, and grow, and be kids again.”
Beneath an impressive report on her fitness activity, including runs of note, Fabrocini singles out five in heartfelt tribute pages as part of her fundraising: her uncle Harry Lynch, her aunt Lori Ann McCarthy, her grandmother Muriel McCarthy, pup Kona Man, and her grandfather Joe Fabrocini.
She said, “I learned a lot from children, what it looks like to grieve or what appropriate coping skills are, and so I have used the New York City Marathon to give back to those children, to honor the hundreds of campers I have had the pleasure of witnessing their own growth in their grief; but also to make space for new campers, because childhood grief is never going to end.”
In 2015 Fabrocini took her master’s degree in school counseling and now volunteers as a Healing Circle leader and in other leadership roles.
“Volunteering has made me better. I feel purposeful, connected, and grateful,” she said.
According to Comfort Zone Camp, 1 in 13 children in the United States will experience the death of a parent or sibling by the age of 18. “The burden of bereavement disrupts family dynamics, strains social relationships, and emotionally isolates grieving children.”
It adds, “Every step we take and every dollar we raise brings us closer to giving more grieving children hope. Together we can provide grief relief to the 5.6 million grieving children in the United States.”
Fabrocini said a separate camp program with unique supports is in place for kids grieving losses over suicide, and that a new partnership is providing support for kids who have suffered losses over Covid-19.
“We certainly see the nuances,” she said.
As a school counselor, she told Pascack Press, “I might be one of very few people in a school system who would naturally understand a child’s grief, and so we spend so much time with kids. We see them all day long every day.”
Asked what people might not understand about what it’s like to be a middle school student these days — there’s the pandemic, and Westwood Regional Middle School was overhauled at its outset to add the eighth grade — she said, “I think for our students now, especially — I have the eighth grade, and they’ve spent almost two or three years in transition, change, limbo, a bit of fear because of the pandemic — they are obviously quite resilient. Every student comes every day; they’re so excited to be with one another again, and the misconception is that they are going to be scarred for life.”
She added, “But I’ve found that they’re genuinely happy to be back with one another, and they’re making up for lost time. They’re motivated to keep moving forward. So we’ve got a lot of fear and a lot of concerns, and they’re warranted, but I think our kids are handling it well.”