COMMENTARY | Josh Powell, who earned high-profile “person of interest” status in the disappearance of his wife Susan Powell in 2009, died in an explosive house fire Sunday. With him at his Puyallup, Wash., home were the couple’s two sons Charles, 7, and Braden,5, reports KOMO News.
The boys had been living with their maternal grandparents pending Powell’s psycho-sexual investigation in connection with their mother’s disappearance and were coming for a scheduled visit with a caseworker. The boys rushed from the car and before the social services worker could catch up with them, Powell had locked himself and his sons in the house. Authorities say it’s evident that Powell intentionally caused the explosion and used fast-burning material to hasten the fire, says an earlier KOMO report.
As police and fire investigators sort out the grownup end of things, classmates at the boys’ Carson Elementary School are trying to process the event from a kid’s perspective. A crisis team spoke with the school children and grief counselors were made available, but it falls mostly to moms and dads to try to explain this inexplicable tragedy to their little ones and console them.
How do you even begin to fill a kid in on the whys and wherefores of crazy adult behavior? It’s difficult enough to talk about strangers do bad things to kids. Worse still is a babysitter, family friend or relative: but a father? It’s beyond comprehension for big people who’ve been around the block a few times and seen bad things before.
The community had a candlelight vigil last night, the Bellingham Herald says. Friends of Charles and Braden expressed their sadness by crying, drawing pictures, bringing stuffed animals, saying prayers and penning goodbye notes in childlike script. One friend shared a toy frog because it was her favorite toy and therefore would be a nice thing for the boys to have. Another child drew his friend Charles “hurt, because I know he died hurting,” reports KOMO. Children are so practical and perceptive; they face head-on what we parents might try so hard to shield them from.
Why do these things happen? What are our takeaways as a society? I have no idea, but I think if anyone does, it’s those kids. Maybe we all need to cry, to comfort each other, to write farewells note to our lost friends and to hug a pink plush frog?