KATHRYN MASTERSON
Associated Press Writer
GREENWICH, Conn. (AP) -- In the minds of the children, the buildings broke. The planes they saw on television kept hitting again and again. And there's a reasonable explanation why a parent hasn't come home.
``My Daddy's going to be coming back, but there aren't enough taxis,'' a 6-year-old told his class in New Canaan. ``Once there are enough taxis, he's coming home.''
Those are the kinds of stories and explanations that the Den for Grieving Kids has begun to hear as the nonprofit counseling organization starts to work with families and children whose lives have been torn apart by the World Trade Center tragedy.
Serving the wealthy Fairfield County towns of Greenwich, New Canaan, Darien and Stamford, the Den for Grieving Kids is well-positioned to help. Thousands of Fairfield County residents commute into New York. Of 60 Connecticut residents confirmed dead or missing in the Trade Center disaster, 50 are from Fairfield County. And many had children who must come to terms with something many adults are still struggling to understand.
``The longing of children, the waiting _ they have no concept of time,'' said Lorenzo Colon Munroe, director of the Den for Grieving Kids.
The Den has helped children who lost parents, siblings or friends to homicide, suicide, accidents and AIDS. Working with the children affected by the Trade Center attack will be the greatest challenge the organization has ever faced, Munroe said.
The Den has been visiting schools and talking to teachers to try to understand how children see the tragedy.
One little girl told a social worker, ``And they did it over and over and over again.'' She had watched the attacks on television.
The day after the attacks, when Robert Higley II was missing from the Trade Center, his 4-year-old daughter, Amanda, told her mother, Vycki, she did not want to go to preschool. She was afraid the other children were going to laugh because she didn't have a daddy.
That thought soon passed, and Amanda went back to school. Her mother tried to keep a routine for her daughter as they waited for news. Robert Higley worked on the 92nd floor for Aon Risk Management Services. Co-workers who escaped said he was on his way out but went back up to help others.
For the first several days after the attack, Ms. Higley answered Amanda's questions _ Where is Daddy? Why aren't we picking him up at the train station? _ by simply saying, ``Daddy is missing.''
By the first weekend, the family told Amanda that her father had died and gone to heaven. That was when Amanda first cried, her mother said.
A year and a half ago, Ms. Higley's sister Elizabeth died of kidney failure at 29. Ms. Higley believes her sister's death may have helped Amanda understand her father's. ``She realizes Daddy's in heaven with Aunt Beth,'' Ms. Higley said.
Ms. Higley, who is expecting another daughter next month, said she is grateful Amanda is only 4 _ young enough to believe unquestioningly in haloed angels and a cloud-filled heaven, too young to know what happened to the Trade Center.
``She won't know the horror until I'm ready to tell her the horror,'' Amanda's mother said. ``I can keep her sheltered.''
The Den for Grieving Kids, which offers its services at no cost and runs several programs for 40 families, is starting a separate group for the families of Trade Center victims.
``The most important thing we do is, we listen to people's scary stories and we don't run away,'' Munroe said.
Many of the families may have trouble getting past their grief because of the uncertainty of ever finding a body. And grieving in private may prove almost impossible. ``They might as well be wearing a big letter _ WTC 9-11,'' Munroe said.
At the Den, families will be able to come together several times a month to have dinner, talk with counselors and play. The families and the counselors will explain death to children who do not understand.
``We will sit with the children who still wonder if Daddy's going to come home when there's enough taxis,'' Munroe said.
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