SIKESTON OFFICE OFFERS COUNSELING TO ALL IN NEED

SIKESTON -- Accepting death is difficult, but when young children die in an accident it makes the grief even more unbearable, counselors say.

Relatives and close friends are grieving for the Miner family whose three children died in a mobile home fire Wednesday, but strangers also are upset.

"We have had a couple of calls from people, and anticipate using a crisis line that we have," said Ron Steinmetz, executive director of Bootheel Counseling Services in Sikeston.

The office will offer counseling to friends, relatives, emergency personnel and anyone who has been affected by the deaths of the children, Steinmetz said. The center can be reached at 471-0800.

People want to deny that any tragedy happens when something terrible happens, he said. "I think everybody feels for the mother and what she's going through. A lot of people are affected."

Emergency personnel, hospital nurses and firefighters need to express their feelings. Disasters and death bring a variety of emotions, including helplessness, anger, depression and grief.

It's more than OK for someone to grieve and express those feelings, Steinmetz said. "It's so important not to push those aside and to talk to someone about those feelings."

The best way to help anyone grieve is just to listen, said Judy Johnson, director of adult outpatient services at the Community Counseling Center in Cape Girardeau.

"The best way to respond to a person who is grieving is to help them through the experience so they can express their feelings," Johnson said. "One way is to let them relive the event and what it means to them."

Often, reliving a tragedy can bring out fears of death, particularly in small children. "Sometimes it's a child's first experience with death and they have fantasized images of what death is like," said Johnson.

Shock is often anyone's first reaction to tragedy. "That's why they can set aside their emotions and not feel," Johnson said. "Therefore, they can recite to you what happened, but they are not in touch with those feelings."

Over time, as they work through the stages of grief, people are more apt to deal with the reality of a tragedy. The common stages of grief are denial, anger, depression and acceptance.

No one can go through these stages in order, Johnson said. "You go back and forth. The initial one for most people is denial. It can take hours and even days before they acknowledge what happened."

There is not always a need for formal counseling when tragedies occur, Johnson said. "The most important thing is that everybody has an opportunity to talk about what they feel."