SYCAMORE TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Steve Joebgen pulls a handful of candles out of the closet at Moeller High School. In the hallway, below a sign that says Campus Ministry, a student stops him.

“Who did you lose buddy?” Joebgen asked him.

The student wants to be part of the school’s bereavement group.

“Children are resilient, but with a caveat. They will carry the trauma with them for the rest of their lives,” Joebgen later said. “There’s always more going on under the surface than we realize.”

Inside the school’s chapel, Joebgen lights rows of candles in the shape of a cross. He wants to make sure they work.

Then he blows them out.

In the library, Benny Sharpshair takes a deep breath before answering a question about his brother.

“He loved everything — too much, actually,” he said with a smile. “He loved to talk too much.”

Benny’s brother died in an ATV crash a few years ago. Now the novice swimmer misses what used to annoy him.

“I’d love to just tell him to shut up now,” he said.

In the school chapel, Benny stands up from a bench and goes to the altar.

“Today I light a candle for my brother Paul,” he said.

Benny is not alone. One by one, nearly 60 high school students light a candle for someone they’ve lost.

“For my mother.”

“My father.”

“My uncle.”

“Grandmother.”

Keith Biery Golick

By the time they turn 18, one in 10 children in Ohio will experience the death of a close family member, according to a group that researching childhood grief. And that means there are about 6 million grieving children and teenagers in the United States Estimation model for childhood grief shows.

It’s a shock no one is prepared for, which is why WCPO 9’s Search for Solutions took us here to Moeller.

“I lost my faith when I was in high school,” Joebgen said. “Because I didn’t get the experience that (these students) get to have.”

In second grade, the director of campus ministry lost his father. In high school, his best friend died.

Now, Joebgen said he gets names of students every week who have lost someone just like he did. And then he asks them if they want to join the grief group.

“Welcome to the biggest group no one wants to be a part of,” Joebgen said.

In the library, the students eat pizza. In the end, there will be laughter. And stories about people who have died.

“I’m not a teacher,” Joebgen said. “This is a conversation.”

Keith Biery Golick

At the beginning of the meeting, senior Lucas Nebabze imitates Joebgen. Later he talks about a close family friend who died. He said he remembers playing ping pong with him. And he said he remembers strong adults breaking down at the funeral.

“I didn’t really know how to handle it,” Lucas said.

He’s been in the group for four years now, and he wouldn’t say it helped him get over his loss. He would say the group helped him accept it and learn to talk about it.

“I don’t think I would ever talk about how I feel without the grief group,” he said.

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For more information on teen grief support groups, check out Travel companion — a West Chester-based nonprofit that works with Moeller grief group officials.