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Had an...interesting night last night.
hypernova:
My wife was off work yesterday, so I get a call after I get home at 5 pm. She's bringing over her close friend's two daughters to spend the night since our girls hadn't seen them in a couple months. One about 5, the other about 11. About 8 or so, while my wife was taking my eldest's boyfriend home, her phone (my daughter's-she left it behind) just starts going crazy. About 5 or 6 times in 5 minutes. I think nothing of it. She's a kid. Pretty normal at times for their phone. My wife gets back home with our daughter. The calls came from the girls' mother. It's an emergency.
We find out her 15 year-old son, their brother, is missing. Out fishing with his friend and girlfriend earlier in the day. They decided to swim the span of the local river. I don't know the level of it or the flow right now, but it's probably reasonably brisk. Not too much rain, not too little lately. We're about on par with average. On the news right now...about 12 feet deep, but apparently the son's not a good swimmer. Anyway, the best friend makes it across. The girlfriend makes it halfway or so, and clings to a log and is eventually saved by emergency personnel. The son doesn't make it, and the best friend tries to help him, but loses his grasp. Son disappears. Well, evening turns into night. If he hasn't turned up alive by now somewhere downstream, the outcome is virtually guaranteed. I've never heard of anyone being swept away, and then found many hours later alive. Before bed, my wife says she hugged him at 3 pm. She's somewhat distraught, crying a bit.
I have to make sure nobody turns on the news. The basic story is already being reported from the commercials leading into it, so we can't let them find out that way. One of the girls brought their own laptop, so upon the mother's request, and short of completely banning everyone from the internet, I try to filter out facebook via the access restrictions, but it seems to take a long time to fully take. I implemented it around midnight, and around 2 am, our eldest comes in and tells my wife that the older girl sees the son's wall, and all the posts wondering where he is (Incidentally, I checked right now, and it IS blocked.) So my wife takes her home, but the younger girl stays since she's unaware of the events.
Woke up this morning. Body recovered. .... He was a good kid, too.
Their family is on welfare. How they'll afford a funeral is beyond me. My wife, feeling guilty because we'll be hitting Myrtle Beach for a week later this year, wants to do something like fundraiser. Neither of us have any clue. So she opts to volunteer her time to help cook and whatnot. I'm looking at maybe a paypal account for donations, but not sure what good it'd do. I have few connections, even online. This site is the extent of my online presence when it comes to leaving a mark like a post or whatever.
Haven't dealt with death this close in a good 15-20 years. Starting feeling a little choked up myself when I dropped off the youngest today after work (my eldest babysat her) just from being around the family. All I could offer was a "sorry for your loss". Sometimes life just plain sucks.
Monkeyvoodoo:
Being a relatively new parent I can't imagine that happening to me. Well, I can but that's the dread of the new father.
I'm a tad out if the area to help directly but let me know when you have something set up PayPal-wise or something. I can put my build on hold for a bit and dig in to that budget.
Sent from a pineapple under the sea
Gray_Area:
This will be harsh. The boy wasn't meant to make it. He was old enough to know. He didn't use his head. None of them did, but the other two survived. What else is there to say?
koolmoecraig:
--- Quote from: Gray_Area on June 20, 2013, 06:56:20 pm ---This will be harsh. The boy wasn't meant to make it. He was old enough to know. He didn't use his head. None of them did, but the other two survived. What else is there to say?
--- End quote ---
That you're a real class act.
Bravo buddy.
fallacy:
Kids on adventures with friends can start to feel indestructible. Most of us get to walk away from it as a close call; thinking that was not a good idea as just something funny that happened in the past.
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