Kids and Processing loss

In 1973, we lived in John Day, Oregon.
The town was so small we had no full time firefighters or ambulance drivers. It's still that way, actually, these things are done on a volunteer basis, meaning that if one or the other is needed, when they hear the sirens, they need to leave their regular job, drive to the ambulance or fire truck and then to the scene of the problem.

In '73, there were no full time police dispatchers, either.

The following incident changed that forever.

In a house trailer down next to the John Day River about a quarter mile from our house one Christmas morning around 6 AM, a string of faulty lights sparked a fire in the Christmas tree in a family's living room.

I remember the sirens going off forever. I'm sure it was at least 20 minutes. There was no 911 then. No police dispatcher. No one minding the store, so to speak. And the whole family died. They were all found in the same room, apparently overcome by smoke while trying to escape. It was a sad thing, and everyone in town talked about it for weeks.

Bend Bulletin December 26th 1973

The entire Skidgel family perished in the fire. Darcey was in my brother Jim's class.
I recall Jim being sad about it for a couple days, but life went on.

Children are resilient and get through things like the death of a friend fairly easily. It's not being callous, it's just how kids are. They're wired to be able to go on, it's a defense mechanism, I think.

They handle and process life events differently than adults.

In the news here a few weeks ago was the story of six year Vinesa Snegur, who fell into the Clackamas River while on an outing with her family and drowned. The poor little thing never had a chance. The river was very high, the water very swift and cold.

They searched for her for a week, and finally found her body so her family could have a burial and get on with their lives.

It was a very sad thing, she was an adorable little girl, only in first grade.
Not fair and not right that a family went to play in the snow and lost their beautiful daughter/sister.

But the aftermath of it just amazed me.

She attended a school in the Portland Metro area.

The school had a bunch of counselors brought in from all over.

In case.

I know someone who works there... the kids were told basically that they should feel bad since their little friend died, and to come talk to the counselor.

And they were bombarded with it all day long. Periodic announcements were made about the availability of people to talk to. The staff was told to keep an eye on kids and to alert the professionals if they suspected any of the kids were having trouble with it.

"Do you feel bad because your friend died?
Of course you do! Come talk to the counselors!"

"If you don't feel sad, you should!!
Come talk to the counselors if you're not feeling bad!!"

My friend told me that the streets around the school were packed with news media, and that some of them had tried to gain entrance to the building through a non-public door to be able to talk to the kids they saw inside.

She said that a reporter from the Oregonian had procured a photo of another little girl and was shoving it in people's faces on the playground until she was asked to leave, saying, "Is this her? Is this her?"

It was a zoo for days.

The principal of her school was quoted on one of the news stations saying that 'a staff member' had sat in Vinesa's chair in her classroom to be a representative of her, which struck me as sort of morbid and weird.
Is that just me?

And I had a visual thought with the recent loss of little Vinesa.
I could see kids going, "Oh, that's sad."
And then going out to recess to play.

Of course they'd miss having her in their class, and some of them might have a rough time with it, but most of them just... go on.
I KNOW that children don't feel some things the way adults do, I work with them. The small stuff... 'he took my toy, she said I was stupid' are HUGE. The huge things? Seem to just finish and go away.

Except in this case, it seems like kids weren't allowed to just go on.


I visualized Vinesa's classmates running off to play and a grownup grabbing them by the coat sleeve and physically yanking them back. "You can't go off and play and feel good! Your friend is dead!!"

It bothers me, this vision I have. I am not sure how to put it all into words. It just feels... wrong.

I'm sure there are children who might need help processing this, but just in my experience, most of them would just go on. Think about it a few times, maybe remember her once in awhile. But with all the reminders, it's not going to work that way, I don't think.

Why does this feel wrong to me? Does it seem okay to you?