Listen to this

Hurricanes and abandonment

Kelly Shaw

The potential for loss over the past few weeks has really got me thinking. Natural disasters threatening here on the east coast of Canada – that doesn’t happen often, so when it does the experience kicks me into overdrive. We had a hurricane a few years ago. So now when they predict that one might arrive again the response has a contextual reaction. I packed away patio furniture, strapped down the dog house and took down hanging baskets a few weeks prematurely. I did not want my choices to cause more damage if Hurricane Ophelia did indeed blow in.

Thankfully she did not. However those people who were devastated by Katrina a few weeks earlier cannot respond with the same sense of relief. Katrina offered me an opportunity for reflection – a moment to remember just how insignificant I am in the big picture. I am reminded at least once a day that I am “just” or “only” however, seeing entire cities reclaimed by mother earth – there is no greater reminder.

As often occurs for me when I take time out to be thankful, I think about the youngsters who I have had the privilege to encounter over the course of my career. Often, when I encounter them they have lost their home, their belongings and their family. I wonder how many times I take the opportunity to offer them a chance to grieve. Accepting their behaviour as a grief response, as a signal to those around them that they need to process the impact of their situation; that they need tools and skills to cope with emotions that when evoked in response to a natural disaster can elicit a stress response so severe the world responds with critical stress intervention.

Think about 11-year-old Mandy who arrived with her few belongings in garbage bags. Her mother said she had to leave and delivered her to the child protection agency when her request for someone to pick her daughter up was unheeded. Mandy loved Care Bears and Winnie the Pooh. She ached to play with Barbie and baby dolls. None of these were available to her because (at that time) we did not see many children who wanted to play like that. Bedtime behaviour consisted of rages, throwing things and yelling, sometimes for an hour or more. We struggled with wanting her settled, and often told her her behaviour was inappropriate.

Inappropriate? What would be appropriate? Compliance? Acceptance? – whatever that would look like.

Think about 13-year-old Ryan, who always ran away from the residential program; ran away to go to his grandparents. Watching hockey and drinking beer certainly seemed like inappropriate behaviour also. But home is home. I can’t make an argument that this is healthy behaviour for a 13-year-old on a Saturday night, but I can understand (from my own place) what it feels like to lose a home and to think you would do anything to get it back.

Those who lost homes and loved ones in the natural disasters are receiving assistance on a number of levels, yet often those children with whom we work get consequences for their grief response or their desperate behaviour, for their attempts to reconnect with what they have lost. I am struggling to make sense of this, and I hope that I take this reflection with me the next time I encounter a youngster who I interpret as feeling angry or confused because they have lost.