Children and tragedy

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When I was growing up in the fifties and sixties, children were not encouraged to go to funerals or discuss how they felt if someone died. All over the world, children are experiencing the devastation of sudden deaths from illness or gun violence, airplane crashes or terrorism. While this has always been true, I’m wondering how children are coping.

As the days got cooler and shorter, I recalled how I felt when I was in elementary school. When I was 9, two commercial planes crashed in the air over New York City on Dec. 16, 1960. It was a snowy Friday in New York, which must have made visual cues difficult for the pilots. But I was just a child and, like most children, rejoiced as the snow came down. It was a very wet snow, but that didn’t stop us from making snowballs.

It was not until the evening that I had any idea the crash occurred or would have an impact on people I cared about. It was the fourth night of Hanukkah. My grandparents were helping us celebrate and just as we were about to light the menorah, the phone rang.

My two sisters and I cried out, “Be for me. Be for me.”

It was our standard response whenever the phone rang, which was not very often back then. My brother, who was 3 and a half, chimed in after we voiced our desire. My mother answered the kitchen wall phone and said, “Beth, it’s for you. Be quick.”

She handed me the receiver and sat back down. I said hello and was happy to hear from my friend Cori. I took it and pulled the long curly cord into the bathroom off the kitchen to have some privacy. She asked me how to play the card game Pisha Pasha that my grandfather had recently taught me. I told her and she thanked me and got off the phone. It seemed like a perfectly normal phone call for us since we never stayed on the phone long.

An hour later the phone rang as my parents and grandparents were drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. I looked over at my mother as she stood by the kitchen phone. Her hand was holding the receiver to her ear and her other hand was covering her mouth. She shouted as she put the receiver back onto the wall phone.

“Al died in a plane crash.”

No one moved.

Cori’s father? What plane? It didn’t make sense.   

grieving, Beth Rosen
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