The Kim Story

The recent Kim Family story has resonated deeply with me this week, especially as our part of the country has been blasted with miserably cold air and blanketed with our first, thin layer of snow this week.

If you haven’t seen the news in the past two weeks, the Kim’s are a San Francisco family, parents, James & Kati, 4-year-old daughter, Penelope, and 7-month-old daughter, Sabine. They were headed to a Thanksgiving vacation at an Oregon resort and missed their initial turnoff. Resourceful travelers, they pulled out their map and took an alternate route. The map said nothing of the route being dangerous and/or closed during the winter – an omission that proved to be fatal. For ten days, the family lived in the car, huddling to keep warm, burning tires for warmth and to signal for help, Kati nursing her children to keep them alive and, ultimately, James leaving his family to search by foot for help.

Wednesday, authorities announced that they found James, face down and lifeless in a creek at the bottom of a steep canyon. May God keep his soul.

He is a model father, who did what any father, desperate for his family’s survival, would do. As one news clip said, “His children will live on, knowing that their father risked and lost his own life to save theirs.” For, it was his footprints in the snow that rescuers followed to eventually locate the family’s stranded vehicle.

So moved by this story, I included it in my Word Processing II’s weekly journal assignment. Most students hadn’t even heard of the story – it’s amazing how little news of which teenagers are aware – so I preempted the prompt with a brief news clip.

Because relating things back to them personally seems to be the only way to get a good amount of thoughtful writing out of young people, my prompt was, “Recently, a family was stranded in the Oregon wilderness for nearly two weeks. The mother and two daughters were rescued, but the father did not make it. If you were stranded in the woods during a snow storm with your family, what would you do to help everyone survive?”

It always amazes me how teenagers have all of the answers to solve the world’s every problem.

One student writes, “I always know what to do when something bad happens, not in the wilderness, but just like for a black out or something like that. I think that if I was with someone, I would be the composed person that could think straight and get through that.” This coming from a student who can barely compose himself for my 90-minute class.

A very industrious, former-boy scout explains in detail what to do: “If you were stranded and all that, it would be important to make a fire that gave off a lot of smoke so that people would be able to see it and be like, ‘Hey! There’s smoke over there, there could be some people stranded or a forest fire!’ and then they would go and check it out and find you. You would also want to have a mirror or something to shine at people if you saw them (like across the mountain or in an airplane). And, you would want to make a giant triangle because that means that someone needs to be rescued.” Well, there you have all you ever need to know.

One of my smaller-built students writes, “You should just stay in the car and huddle together with the smallest person in the middle of everyone else to keep them warmer. Because of their size, they won’t be able to stay as warm as everyone else.” Speaking from personal concern?!

And, the one student I apparently need to take on any of our future road trips to unknown destinations shares this special talent: “I am VERY good with backtracking directions. If I’m going somewhere where I have never been, all I have to do is remember the way there and I can get back the way I came. I’m not very good with “getting there” but “getting back” directions, I’m very good at.” Good to know, if we ever get anywhere from where we need to get back!

Of course, during a brief discussion after the news clip, most of the students assumed that this family went on their vacation with at least a month’s worth of rations in the form of food, clothing, diapers, combustibles, flares, etc. Because, doesn’t every family load their car up with all of that before heading off for Thanksgiving weekend?! It was still, nonetheless, a good opportunity to review some survival techniques and things to pack in a winter safety kit that we should all have in our cars. (Reminds me of when we all hauled around gallons of water in our trunks waiting for “the big one” to hit in CA.)

Ultimately, my heart is broken for the Kim family. I can only imagine how painful this time must be for Kati and their family and friends. I can’t imagine how destroyed I would feel having lost Dennis, and how infinitely I would replay all the what-if’s and “we should have never’s” over and over in my head. James truly is a heroic father, and I can only pray for security and healing for his surviving family.

Finally, one of my students writes, “I can’t believe how such a little thing can turn into such a big thing.” I imagine their family is feeling regretfully the same.