K| Four Siblings Aged 5-14 Decide It is Time for Them to Go

I recently learned of a story that just about broke my heart, and I’m sorry but I’m about to break yours, too.

The title of this post basically speaks for itself: Four siblings aged 5-14 decide it’s time for them to go and leave this earth behind.

Four siblings in Guizhou, China commit suicide together by drinking pesticide.

When I first heard of this story from my mom, I was in complete shock, as was she. How can children younger than myself, as young as 5 years old, think that their time of living is up? How is this possible? They weren’t depressed. This isn’t a mental illness story. This is four children actually sitting down to discuss and ultimately decide that dying would be better than the lives that they led.

What kind of terrible lives must they have had, then?

To understand what these children went through in their lives, my mom told me that I need to know more about Guizhou.

Guizhou is a southwestern province of China that is marked by severe, wretched poverty. The geography of Guizhou makes the lives of the people there even harder, with its extremely mountainous terrain that forces its inhabitants to live extremely remotely.

To make ends meet, oftentimes parents will leave their children behind in Guizhou to go to bigger cities to make money to send back home. In relatively better situations, other family members will look after the children while their parents are away. However, that is not always the case. Sometimes, children are left completely on their own to fend for themselves, with their parents visiting only a few times a year.

These four siblings were of the latter and less fortunate category. Their mother had left their entire family for good a while ago and their father had been their primary caretaker. However, to call him a caretaker would be an overstatement because he was rarely home. He had to do what many other parents of Guizhou do: he left his kids behind in the hopes of making money to provide for a better life for them all.

No one had been taking care of these children for years. They survived on only corn starch for a while. They stopped going to school. They completely isolated themselves and did not even let their relatives into their home when they came to try to help these kids.

And, finally, they decided to kill themselves.

The notes they left behind read “Thanks for your kindness. I know you mean well for us, but we should go now” and “I made a vow that I wouldn’t live over the age of 15. I’m 14 now. I dream about death, and yet that dream never comes true. Today it must finally come true.”

A lot of people hear this story and are immediately angry at the parents and feel that the parents are at fault. I agree that if the father had not left the children behind, they might still be here today. However, if he had stayed home, he would not have been able to provide for them in any way. This practice of leaving children behind for work in more prosperous cities of China has been in place for years and years and is considered commonplace for these rural regions, because these families are so poor there is nothing else possible that they can do to save themselves.

It is the conditions of these families that is at fault. It is their extreme poverty. It is our ignorance of their existence. Our lack of aid. These are what are truly at fault, I believe.

Life is just so not fair and it’s not okay that for the more fortunate to live in oblivion. These news stories are disheartening and depressing, but we need to keep on reading them and educating ourselves. We should keep on learning about each other, the other people that share this world with us, and we need to care about each other’s hardships.

We need to forget our differences and help those in need when we can. We need to be grateful for what we have but we also need to share.

**I understand that there are different versions of this story being told online by various news sources, in which some say that the children did not kill themselves on purpose, but my mom read an article from a Chinese news site and an article from a Chinese newspaper to me and these sources state that the deaths were suicidal, so I am basing this post off of what my mom and I together believe to be most likely. However, if you wish to disagree with our interpretation, that is completely fine and understandable.

Sincerely,

K

K| On Moving On and Attaining Closure

My last post, from 3 days ago, talks of a recent tragedy, two high school graduates and matriculating college freshmen killed in a drunk driving incident in my area.

Then, yesterday I wrote a new blog post about something different entirely. I was just about the hit the publish button, because I was actually very happy with what I had written, when this feeling in my gut stopped me. At first, I couldn’t figure out what it was. Usually, I’m really excited to finally be able to press on that beautiful, blue publish button with no hesitation. But then, I suddenly thought of my post from 3 days ago and its very devastating topic and I couldn’t let myself do it.

I saw the title of the post I had just written and the last post I published juxtaposed next to each other, “Mr. Antolini” (I had just read Catcher in the Rye again and had some thoughts I wanted to share about the famous Mr. Antolini) and “Let’s Not Make Any More Cautionary Tales,” and something did not feel right.

This recent school year, my junior year, a senior at my high school committed suicide. He had shot himself in the head with a gun. The way that we were informed of this was the next morning during first period in an announcement over the speakers. Our principal, who never makes an appearance otherwise, spoke about the loss. I was in math class at the time and after the announcement was over, my math teacher was unable to continue his lesson. Instead, our whole class sat in silence for 40 minutes until the bell rang signaling to change for second period.

When I walked into the halls, I expected the same kind of despondent, mournful silence that had enveloped my math class to prevail throughout the entire school.

But I was wrong.

Instead, it was as if nothing had just happened. People were laughing and talking and giggling as per usual. There were definitely some people who were crying and people who were walking dejectedly, but for the most part, our school was its normal self.

I was extremely confused.

Then I found out from some of my friends who had different first periods than me that their classes had a totally different dynamic than my math class after the announcement. They told me that their teachers were very sad, but that they continued their planned lessons for the day anyways and only the kids who were crying and knew the student who had passed very well left the classroom and did not continue doing their work.

This was the first time that I realized how differently people move on and grieve difficult situations.

I don’t think that it would have been necessarily wrong of me to just post “Mr. Antolini” and treat “Let’s Not Make Any Cautionary Tales” in the same way that I treat all of my other posts, without consideration about how it must connect with the next post, but personally, I am incapable of moving on in that way.

I don’t have any answers for what is the right way or the best way to move on from a loss, or what moving on even really means, but what I do want to say is do what you think feels right. Don’t let anyone tell you that you aren’t allowed to feel sad or that you aren’t allowed to be okay and/or accept the situation.

Also, I know that it’s really hard to see other people laughing when you’re so sad inside, but everyone has dealt with loss before and, if not yet, unfortunately, will at some other point in their lives, and you are not ever alone for this. Let them laugh and be happy, because you will join them very soon.

And, finally, on respecting those more affected than you: I don’t think you need to write a lengthy Facebook post or blog post to prove your respect to other people. You don’t need to prove anything. This situation isn’t about you. However, if expressing your sorrow publicly what you truly, genuinely want to do, then by all means, go ahead. In general though, just be mindful of your words, as you always should, because you never really know what’s going on in other people’s lives. You are allowed to move on, but just keep in mind that there are many people who have not yet reached that stage, and that knowledge will guide you in making the right decisions.

For me, as a part of my moving on, I’m writing this post and publishing this one instead of “Mr. Antolini” and giving it a few days before I publish anything else unrelated to this current topic. This post isn’t for anybody else and it’s not to prove anything to anyone, it’s just for myself because I felt that I needed closure.

I will continue to pray for the families and friends of those killed or injured by this accident, though, regardless, of whether I have achieved closure.