Unspeakable grief: Coronavirus makes processing double suicide in Oakdale even harder
I can’t imagine a worse time to be a teenager and learn that two schoolmates killed themselves.
Processing such tragedy is difficult under the best of circumstances. But Oakdale teens are forced to confront this task largely alone, thanks to COVID-19 social distancing guidelines.
Saturday’s apparent double suicide near the Stanislaus River is breaking hearts in Oakdale, throughout Stanislaus County and beyond. The pain seems compounded because these two girls were at an age when life ought to be unfolding with anticipation and promise.
They were 15 and 17. Pictures posted by family in social media suggest they were loved. But Facebook photos don’t generally capture internal struggle, strain and suffering.
Attempts by Modesto Bee reporters to learn about them have yielded few clues, and authorities have filled in few blanks. Both are understandable; loved ones often crave space to grieve, and police feel that too much talk can spoil an investigation.
The timing of this tragedy, in the middle of a pandemic, is troubling. The girls’ peers might have found some solace in hugging and just being together, now frowned on in this time of social distancing. They might have sought peace in speaking with counselors routinely provided by schools when such unthinkable things occur, but Oakdale High, like all schools, is closed.
It’s distressing to imagine so many young people unable to process their emotional trauma because of life-preserving isolation. The very rules that are supposed to give us a fighting chance at staying alive are preventing people from solving deadly sorrow.
Adults, too, can despair at such news. It’s natural to want to know why, and whether something or someone is to blame.
The mother of a 15-year-old Stockton girl who hanged herself a couple of weeks ago told reporters that coronavirus-related stress played a role. No suicide note was found, but mothers know things that aren’t easily explained. The woman said her daughter, Jo’Vianni Smith, was an active, promising athlete whose self-worth became a question mark under stay-home rules.
The New York Post last month wrote about a girl in England whose suicide in March was attributed to anxiety from being alone. The same publication wrote about the Stockton girl’s death, too.
One Sacramento TV news station on Monday noted five teen suicides in the region in the preceding two weeks, including the two in Oakdale. Investigators continue seeking information on motives, the report wisely noted.
An aunt of one of the Oakdale girls posted this thought in Facebook: “To everyone with a mental illness who is currently in quarantine, sitting with their thoughts everyday: Be kind to yourself and hold on. This world needs you.”
The investigative process, unfolding as it is in Oakdale, may someday help us make sense of what appears to be senseless. Or it may not.
But that news, whatever form it takes, should have no bearing on our resolve to love our young people.
There is no better time to listen, to lift, to seek to understand, to accept, to forgive, and to ask forgiveness.
Youth is hard enough to navigate in normal times. In these uncertain times, with our lives turned upside down, things can be especially rough on our young people, their futures suddenly clouded.
We must reach out and reassure. In quiet moments, we must take off the masks we wear in public — made of fabric, or fear. We must be ourselves, and let them be themselves.
Social distancing doesn’t mean emotional distancing, not when it comes to our kids. While staying six feet from everyone else, we must hold our young people ever closer.
This story was originally published April 14, 2020 at 5:53 PM.
