On a quiet road in Falmouth, a modest three-bedroom house is being transformed into a haven for families who are grieving the death of a loved one.
The property was purchased by the bereavement nonprofit William’s Be Yourself Challenge. Founder Susie Shaw named the organization in honor of her son, William, who died in a ski accident in 2019 when he was 9 years old.
“This house will be a respite home for families going through what most people call the unimaginable,” said Shaw.
The nonprofit is renovating the space to turn it into The Green House Retreat. Grieving families will use the house as they wish for one week, Shaw said. It will be free, and there will be no set agenda or schedule. She said she plans to work with local bereavement organizations for referrals of interested families. She hopes to welcome the first family in 2028.
A painful loss
Shaw named The Green House in honor of William’s favorite color.
“He had the biggest smile you could ever imagine,” Shaw said about her son. “We called him whale shark because his mouth was just so gosh darn big.”
After William’s death, Shaw said she, her husband and her other son took as many trips away from their home as possible. It was a temporary escape from painful reminders, like the sight of William’s bedroom or his school.
“Or the grocery store trip where I would see a neighbor who would just tilt their head ever so slightly and say, ‘How are you doing?’ ” Shaw said. “All so supportive, but it was still so hard.”
Time away wasn’t just about grieving, Shaw said. It also gave her family the space to reconnect and reimagine their relationships without William. She hopes to give that experience to other families living through a loss.
“The Green House is our way of giving families a little bit of time and a little bit of space for free so that they can do some of the things that we got to do,” Shaw said. “To sit together as a family, to have some quiet time, to be anonymous in a town that they’ve never been to.”
Grief retreats on the rise
The Green House grief retreat is one example of a growing trend in wellness tourism, according to the nonprofit Global Wellness Institute’s 2025 trend report.
The Massachusetts hospitality industry is seeing that growth. Miraval Berkshires, a resort and spa in Lenox, had a 75% increase in private grief-focused wellness sessions from January through August this year, compared to the same time last year.
Cody Delistraty, a journalist and author of the book “The Grief Cure: Looking for the End of Loss,” said grief practices have changed significantly in the U.S over the last century.
“I really see grief as something that has shifted historically from being public, from being communal, into something that unfortunately has become a lot more private,” Delistraty said.
Delistraty argues the shift stemmed from changes in mourning practices, like less people wearing dark clothing for long periods of time and death moving from the home to the hospital. He added workplace bereavement policies that limit time off to four or five days after a loss feed an American culture focused on productivity rather than healing. Seemingly small cultural shifts, Delistraty argues, are part of the reason for the stigma around grief and the indelible idea that grief can be “cured.”
Delistraty and other industry experts say a desire to return to that communal way of mourning is likely part of the reason for the rise in grief retreats. Many of these retreats are shared spaces where strangers can come together during the pain.
“People don’t want to go into a treatment room anymore,” said Amy McDonald, a consultant with the Global Wellness Institute. “They want to be with people that are going through something similar.”
“The Green House is our way of giving families a little bit of time and a little bit of space … to sit together as a family, to have some quiet time, to be anonymous in a town that they’ve never been to.”Susie Shaw
McDonald also said guests join grief retreats for more than just death — some come to process a divorce, a difficult medical diagnosis or a life change.
“It’s the death of something,” McDonald said. “I think women in particular grieve becoming mothers, right? We grieve the loss of our other life as an example.”
Shaw said she has tried one such communal program.
“I went on a grief retreat that was 25 women grieving all different types of people, and it was amazing,” Shaw said. But she said she struggled to find a place, “for a single family to go and just process what has happened to them.”
That’s pushed her to create something new and restrict The Green House to one family at a time.
About a mile from the future site of The Green House is Surf Drive Beach where Shaw often walks along the water.
“You can’t help but feel part of something larger when you’re standing in front of the ocean,” Shaw said. “And I think that really helps when you are grieving, especially a child, to feel connected to something bigger.”
Shaw collects sea glass washed up on the sand as she walks. All the green pieces, she said, are from William. She hopes other visitors will find reminders of their loved ones at the house and the beach too. After all, she imagines The Green House as a place where families continue to share stories about their deceased loved ones, face their grief and find some hope.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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