By DIANE GASPER-O'BRIEN

dobrien@dailynews.net

He had done his share of building, and rebuilding, in his lifetime.

There wasn't a woodworking or remodeling project too big for Kris Munsch to tackle.

The bigger the challenge, the better he liked it.

Then one day late in 2005, he was hit with a rebuilding project he hadn't been expecting -- one he didn't want to take on.

No amount of bolts or screws or nails or glue was going to fix this one. So now what was he going to do?

That was the question that kept haunting Munsch in the hours, days, weeks and even months following the death of his teenage son.

"I'd built businesses, rebuilt houses, but this was a personal loss situation," he said. "It's not something you can go out and buy parts to fix."

Four years later, Munsch has bounced back -- in a big way.

Earlier this month, he published a book, "The Birdhouse Project: Healing through the Collaboration of the Heart, Mind and Hands."

A former Hays resident who now teaches industrial technology at Bonner Springs High School in the Kansas City area, Munsch will be in Hays this week to promote the book.

On Monday, he will talk about his book on local radio stations, on The Country Bull KKQY 101.9 FM, from 7 to 9 a.m., and on Tuesday, he will be a guest on the KAYS morning talk show, 1400 AM, which runs from 9 to 10 a.m.

Both afternoons, he will appear at two local bookstores, with several copies of the book in hand.

From 1 to 3 p.m. Monday, he will be at The Rock Good Book Store, 1012 Main, and the same time Tuesday he will be at The Messenger, 2512 Vine.

The loss

"This is a true story about rebuilding life after personal loss," Munsch wrote on his original draft of the book.

There is nothing more true about that statement for Munsch.

Two days before Christmas in 2005, he received a call about 10 p.m. at his Hays home.

His 16-year-old son, Blake, had died in a car accident.

Kris Munsch did something he never had done before.

He withdrew.

An outgoing person who had welcomed -- even reveled in -- challenges, Munsch started getting rid of things close to him.

He sold his three businesses in Hays.

He sold his 4,500-square-foot historical, three-story house in Hays that he had spent two years renovating and moved out of town.

He and his wife of four months, Gena, and her 3-year-old son, Jacob, moved to Manhattan, where Gena had attended college at Kansas State University.

"It was close enough for me to drive back to Hays to visit Blake's grave," Munsch said. "She liked Manhattan, and I didn't care where we moved, anywhere but Hays."

Munsch bounced around at a couple of jobs, not knowing where to turn next.

He said people would ask him what his future plans were, and he was at a loss for words.

Munsch admitted he was so engulfed in grief that he couldn't make any decisions about his future.

"Sometimes I don't even know what I was doing for dinner," he said.

He didn't know what to say, didn't know how to act.

Then one day came a breakthrough.

"My wife came downstairs and said, 'I know you're deep in sorrow, but you've got a family upstairs that loves you,' " he said.

"Her words, 'We need you back in our lives,' " Munsch said, "was a turning point for me."

Starting to rebuild

"People would tell me if you could figure out how to turn that sorrow into positive energy, think of what it could do," Munsch said.

Munsch figured it out.

He successfully pursued a job as the industrial technology teacher at Bonner Springs High School at the start of the 2007-08 school year.

He was back in his element, producing results the hands-on way.

One day he organized a project for his high school students to build a birdhouse with second-graders.

Munsch presented the project at a staff development conference in Wichita later that year, connecting project-based learning to the birdhouse.

It was then that he realized he had something.

"I tied it to healing and called it project-based healing," he said, "and it just took off."

Munsch wrote the book to help himself heal, he said, but he learned it also could help others.

Munsch talked about a woman who recently had lost her husband and bought the book.

"I got an e-mail from her saying it gave her direction and affirmed the things she was going through was OK," he said. "Face it, when something like this happens, it changes you. You're a different person, and you have to accept that.

"You get to re-invent yourself," Munsch added. "And here's a way to help do it."

Helping others

"The Birdhouse Project" includes all the pieces a person needs to build his or her birdhouse, including pre-cut wood, nails and screws.

It takes a person through the steps of literally building a birdhouse, using the pieces as steps in rebuilding your life after a loss.

"When you end up in any kind of tragedy or any kind of a loss, take that loss and break it into steps," Munsch said. "One thing can be overwhelming, but if you break it down into one step at a time, it's manageable.

"It's a way of building your way out," he said.

Munsch wants people to be able to go his Web site at www.thebirdhouseproject.com and tell him their story if that helps them.

"Some people don't realize when you lose someone close to you that one of the best things they can do is say (the loved one's) name," he said. "People don't want to make you uncomfortable, don't know what to say. But we want to hear stories about them. We don't want people to forget them."

Moving forward

Munsch calls his book "a manual on how to move forward in life."

"I had spent a lifetime buidling who I was," he said. "And losing Blake had never been part of the life I had planned."

Now, Munsch's plans are to keep moving forward with more books and projects and appearances.

He said he still sometimes has to work on enjoying himself, finding that at first "the littlest things were tough to celebrate."

"Getting a soda at Cerv's (convenience store), feeling guilty for tapping my toe to music," he said. "Should I enjoy things without him?"

He doesn't feel that way so much anymore and even can allow himself to celebrate Christmas.

"Christmas is very special to me," he said. "It's not a holiday I dread; it's a holiday I embrace."

Every Christmas since that forgettable one of 2005, Munsch admits, gets a little easier.

Christmas 2009

This Christmas season, Munsch said, promises to be a special one.

He is looking forward to talking about his book in Hays, where his in-laws, Gene and Linda Argo, live and plans to spend time with his parents, Jerry and Clara Rose Munsch, and other relatives in his native town of Ness City.

He will visit his son's grave in Hays -- which of course has one of his dad's birdhouses nearby.

Munsch is excited to tell Blake about the progress of the project and how, this time, the son has inspired the dad.

Munsch already is working on another book, a birdhouse project for teenagers, and plans to give presentations at schools.

Someday, he hopes to become a principal.

"You can inspire a lot of kids as a classroom teacher," he said. "But being a principal is like a ripple in the pond. A teacher can inspire hundreds of kids, but a principal can inspire dozens of teachers to inspire hundreds of kids.

"I cannot wait," he said, "to have that energized effect on teachers."

All the while, Munsch relies daily on his own inspiration.

"I preached to Blake for years to get up and fight back," Munsch said. "He has taught me the biggest lesson of all. 'OK, Dad, it's your turn.' That's what drives me."