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Kris Munsch, a Bonner Springs High School woodworking teacher, recently wrote a book about the grieving process. “The Birdhouse Project” uses Munsch’s experience losing his son in a car accident and the healing properties of building a birdhouse.

“It was absolute destruction. Not a piece of metal on the car was in its intended shape.”

This is the way Kris Munsch describes the wreckage of the car in which his son was killed nearly five years ago.

Looking back upon the mangled mess and scattered debris of the car accident that took his son Blake isn’t easy for the Bonner Springs High School teacher to this day. Dec. 23, 2005, will forever be the day in which his own life scattered, and he’s been trying to pick up the pieces ever since.

Munsch’s rebuilding process has now been chronicled in a soon-to-be released book. Just like he had to rebuild his own life, Munsch has created a book that walks fellow grievers through the process of building a birdhouse, symbolizing something new being born out of crisis.

“I love telling the story of what I’ve been through,” Munsch said, adding that he hopes his book will help others who’ve gone through tragedy like his own find a way to the other side.

While it may not be the easiest story to tell, Munsch pushes through the pain, he said, because he sees value in the lessons he’s learned and the life he’s lived.

“I think I have a good story to tell,” he said. “People who’ve heard it have told me it’s affected them.”

After coming up with the concept of “The Birdhouse Project,” Munsch, a woodworking teacher, enlisted the writing and editing help of Bonner Springs High School English teacher Jeff Fouquet.

Together, the two teachers constructed a brutally honest account of the thoughts, no matter how embarrassing, that goes through a person’s head when trying to make sense of the pain caused by loss.

Munsch’s book begins with the tragic loss of his son. Pivotal moments, such as the last time he saw Blake, the phone call informing him of the accident, stepping into the funeral home to view the remains and life after such a loss, are all revisited.

Munsch said the process of getting his story from the overwhelming memories in his head onto paper was not an easy task.

“What’s been most difficult is getting my thoughts and ideas to translate into written words,” he said. “It’s easy to say it, because it’s like the words disappear. But if written, it doesn’t change. I was forced to really deal with it in that way.”

As the book progresses, Munsch turns the story on the reader and addresses the healing process.

“If each piece of the birdhouse is given a task or assigned specific symbolism and we put this meaning together to building something new, it can represent more than just walls and a roof,” he writes in the book.

There are six pieces of the birdhouse with a corresponding chapter for each representing different areas of the grieving process. Munsch directs his readers to put their thoughts and feelings on one side of the pre-cut boards so that when the pieces are assembled, their words are hidden inside, and something new is created in return.

While Munsch said the book was not intended to end a person’s grieving process and does not address the traditional steps to grieving often used in self-help books, he hopes that through looking inward, his reader’s learn to harness their grief and create a new life and continue to live.

“I will always be in the grieving process,” Munsch said. “I will forever grieve, but I will continue to grow.”

In the months and years following Blake’s accident, Munsch said he never was interested in picking up a traditional self-help book to help with the grieving process. So when it came time to write his own book, he wanted to steer clear of that idea.

Instead, Munsch said his book is a hands-on approach to grieving that asks readers to expose areas of themselves they may not even know are there.

“My hope is to reach people that go through any kind of loss,” Munsch said. “If you just let everything go and just expose yourself in the walls of this birdhouse, you’ll gain leaps and bounds.”

“The Birdhouse Project” will soon be available for purchase the first of December online at thebirdhouseproject.com or at Millers Too, 108 N. Nettleton, Bonner Springs.

Each book will come with Munsch’s story, as well as the pre-cut pieces required for the constructing of the birdhouse.

Eventually Munsch said he would like to “The Birdhouse Project” into a series. While his first book was focused on the adult grieving process, he hopes to write versions, still using the birdhouse concept, for children, teens and families.

“It’s really started to take on a life of its own,” he said.

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