WHEN THE NEWS HITS CLOSE TO HOME (and it will)

I’ve worked in news in some fashion since 1996. I’ve seen bad things, worse things, the worst thing, and then seen the worst thing re-defined more times than I can count. I’ve seen really bad people doing really bad things, even to the point in one newsroom we joked we should do a “People Suck” segment.

But then there are the uplifting stories, the heroic ones, the compassionate people who go above and beyond, the first responders who risk their lives to save the life of a person or a beloved pet.

Journalists are humans, not sure if SOME of you know that, and we take our work and our stories home with us either in a crevice of our mind or a broken spot in our heart. We also span decades of ages, from the green journalist just out of school 2000 miles away from home, to the one who could have retired decades ago but says “I’ll die at work, and I’m fine with that.” Nobody teaches you how to cope while reporting trauma. You learn it.

We are a tough bunch on the exterior. But we never forget the incredibly sad or the amazingly strong stories we tell.

We lost a police officer in Lincoln last year, a man who was so beloved in a situation that should have been routine.

We held a drive at our station to help raise money for the family. I hear over and over again about the strength of his wife and family. By the end of the day, I felt I knew the wife. Her name is Carrie. I was so compelled to reach out to her, and I wrote her what I hope wasn’t a creepy “Who the hell is this?” email. It wasn’t. She responded in kind. It wasn’t for a story, it was for my soul.

But I didn’t know that person. It still hurt.

The week my mom died in July of 2008, I got to St. Louis right in the aftermath of a horrible 10 car pileup on I-40 near 270. It was bad. Three people died, 15 were injured, and it was all over the news.

As I got home from the hospital that first night, my dad and I didn’t say much to each other, both wondering if our beloved wife and mother was going to live. He played the answering machine. There was my mom’s voice, loopy from drugs, but warning my dad to NOT take I-40 to the hospital because she saw a “bad accident” on the news and didn’t want him to get stuck in that traffic.

We laughed for a moment, knowing how random it was for a woman fighting for her life as blood clots gathered in her lungs, to be worried about US sitting in traffic. To me, that voicemail was precious. You see, I didn’t get there until she was having such trouble breathing they intubated her. The last time I spoke to her was two days before via phone, where she insisted I do NOT come to town because “Work needs you, and I’ll need you in a few weeks when I’m home. Stay there. I’m fine.”

I remember sitting that night at the kitchen table of my childhood home. I had no idea my dad was going to erase the message, and as he went to hit the button I said “DAD! NO! Save that!”. Something in me knew that would be the last voice I’d hear from her. But it was gone.

She died the next night, shortly before midnight, surrounded by friends and family, singing ‘Amazing Grace’ and telling stories, each getting a few minutes alone with her before it was time to let her go into God’s waiting arms.

As my sister and I drove home that night, pretty much in silence aside from my sister saying, “Is this really happening?”. I don’t even know if she meant to say it out loud. I didn’t have an answer. My body wasn’t ready to accept this news yet that was all too true.

I sat the next day I thought about the VO’s, MAPs, Full Screens, I’ve created over the years about a “Fatal Accident”. I wondered if I had given those people the respect they deserved, now knowing the pain that comes with what was reduced to a 20-second map. It changed my perspective on how I write and who’s on the other side of that story.

I then went a layer deeper, thinking “My mom’s death isn’t even important enough to make the news.” For some reason, that really hit me hard. I cried. ?

After that, every death story shaped how I wrote it. There was a grieving lost daughter, father, sister, someone, mourning the way I mourned. I wanted to write it with the respect it deserved.

WHEN “THE NEWS” HITS HOME

The end of August was a really hard time for me. I had spent every day of the summer, weekends included, working myself silly with projects right in front of me, an amazing plan of action to develop the news team into the A-Team I knew we could be, making an internship program that was second to none while interviewing dozens of candidates while cooking Sunday night dinners. I’ve never felt more useful, in control, and ready to tackle the world as I did pre-August 20. I was insanely proud of the accomplishments and the fruits that would bear from my dedicated work.

Then life threw a curveball, and I was sidelined for a variety of health and personal reasons that don’t really matter in the context of this article and aren’t any of your business. ((I put a lot out there, I know, but some things are just for me.))

On August 26th, the news world around me was swirling. There was a terror attack at the Baghdad airport with dead marines and military members, Hurricane Ida was poised for an unthinkable track, and our local community was ping-ponging COVID protocols all over the place in a flurry of breaking news and live news conferences.

As any good journalist does, I read through the names of the Marines, looking for any local connection. That’s just the job. I saw the face of the marine who was from Omaha and my heart sank. Cpl. Daegan Page was a young, handsome guy, offering his life for his country in an offer acceptance that came way too soon. ?

I researched and wrote and dug into his background, for myself, not for any news outlet. I needed to know more. I am built to bring news no matter what.

I watched all weekend as Hurricane Ida approached and then devastated parts of the country where I have loved ones. I watched as a newsroom in New Orleans worked around a blown-off roof with water leaking in, a situation I knew all too well.

I logged and tweeted out what I could from local news conferences to get the word out about staffing emergencies, DHMs changing, mask mandate debates, and vaccination discussions ad nauseum.

Then one day, I woke up and like many (okay, ALL of you), scrolled through my Facebook feed. That’s when the news hit home. Staring at a news story, I saw my childhood flash before my eyes.

I wept.

Growing up in Creve Coeur, Missouri, we had an idyllic life. We got home when streetlights came on, ate dinner as a family, and rode bikes until our legs couldn’t move.

My best friend and partner in crime during childhood was Suzie Schmitz. The Schmitz and Hardy families were like extensions of each other in many ways. We grew up together, just four houses apart. Suzie was my age, and there was an older daughter my sister’s age, and a younger sister two years behind us, and a brother.

Man, I always wanted a brother. So, Mark Schmitz, for all the fun ways and all the annoying “boy” ways, became my surrogate brother. God bless the man for being in a middle-class house with three sisters, a?mom, and only a dad to help balance the gender gap.

I’ve asked permission of Kathleen, the youngest sister, to share some of her pictures to help tell this story. I’m not telling a story I don’t have the okay to do, and I’m uber cautious about be sensitive in this storytelling. I think we could all bottle this and use it for every story we write about grief and loss and hope.

Here’s the Schmitz family as I remember them through the years.

?They had a pool in their backyard that we swam in until we were beyond puckered as kids. I went to their family farm (of sorts, I remember it as a farm, but I was young, maybe it was a wide-open space).

One of my favorite memories of Mark, the brother, was on a small tin boat. We were going fishing. I had never been fishing before. This was going to be awesome.

That’s until he handed me a cricket and said, “Put this on the hook”. I promptly said “No”. He said, “You can’t fish if you don’t do it”. I shook my head in protest and folded my arms. Maybe brothers weren’t all that great if they were touching and spearing crickets.

The boat was too small to move to the other side, so I was way too close to the murder of several crickets and worms to the benefit of catching some random fish I wouldn’t even touch. Suddenly, fishing wasn’t awesome, and I wanted my barbie dolls. He threatened to make me swim back to land if I didn’t fish. I pulled the old “I’ll tell my mom”, and that was enough of that.

Many years later we re-connected on Facebook, as we all had moved on with lives to different parts of the country. Mark was still in St. Louis, and he wrote “Well, well, if it isn’t little Jenny Hardy”. Once a pseudo-brother, always a pseudo-brother.

So why on this 28th day of August in 2021, was I looking at his eyes in a list of Marines killed. He wasn’t a marine. But those were the eyes.

It took me a second to read the words on the Facebook post, and I had to read like I was 5 years old, digesting one world at a time.

“Please take a moment to honor this true American hero. My nephew, only 20, an incredible and devoted young man with so much life ahead of him, cut short along with 12 of his comrades, while bravely protecting others outside the Kabul airport. Our family is devastated, heartbroken, at a loss for words. Keep my brother Mark Schmitz, his wife Jaclyn Avenevoli Schmitz, and their kids in your thoughts at this time. And pray for all of our service members.”

Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz, of Wentzville, Missouri, the son of a kid I grew up with, was gone.

My mind bounced back and forth between those horrible images I saw on all the news feeds and the innocence of childhood riding bikes and catching fireflies in jars.

I knew people had died in an effort to get as many people out of Afghanistan as possible, but I didn’t ever think it would hit closer to home for me than the “local connection” we were already mourning and honoring. This guy was everything that is good in the world, heck, he's even gentle with animals!

I dug and dug into more information, and I saw the tributes pouring through the streets of St. Louis and surrounding areas. I saw Mark on the news in a way no father ever wants to make the news.

His quote to KSDK really shook me.

"They probably had to tell me 10 times before it sunk in. It’s the worst feeling in the world that you can ever imagine, when they left I just collapsed and cried, that’s all I could do."

He went on to say, "I took a phone call before coming up here. I finally spoke to his commanding officer that was there, he was 20 meters behind him. There was a lot of commotion, mad rushing to the gate at the same time and the Marines that weren’t at the wall were rushing to help and he tells me, 'I’ve never seen bravery like that. What they did and how they reacted to this, enabled a lot of people to get through even at that time and essentially saved their lives. If you could’ve seen what I’ve seen, proud couldn’t even describe about your son. These guys are truly heroes.'"

I’ll let the pictures and video tell this story of how you bring a fallen hero home. Very proud of my hometown and the outpouring of support.

Kathleen wrote a post that once again brought me to tears on September 8, knowing people who helped shape the human being I am were hurting so badly. Remembering us as all kids, needing guidance in a tough world, now raising kids of their own and having to explain such awful things.

“We brought the kids to see the flags last night. An incredibly moving memorial to those lost to the War on Terror since 9/11/01, 20 years ago today. 7,500+ honorable souls who gave the ultimate sacrifice for their country ????. I knew which row Jared’s flag was in but not the exact position.

He must have led me directly to it as it was the first one I checked.

My husband spent a few moments with ((my son)) telling him what had happened to his cousin. ((My son)) has a basic understanding of death but seeing Jared’s picture with the flag must have really hit him.”

I messaged with Kathleen on 9/11, as she was preparing to go to the visitation and was wondering how she could possibly handle it. As someone who hid the coat closet for a good 30 minutes during my mom’s memorial, I offered her that advice and said, “Message me gibberish if you just need to get away a few minutes and look busy.” It was the only help I could offer.

WHAT WE LEARN FROM THIS

You never know when the news is going to “hit home”, when it’s someone you knew or someone you are close to, or when it impacts your neighborhood.

I’ve watched as people work to cover hurricanes or wildfires, knowing their own home is in the path of the storm and they might be losing all they have but keep working.

Remember that in every story you tell. In a rush to get the package done? Make one more phone call. Get one more picture of the person that summarizes their life. Ask for one more anecdote from the grieving family. Respect their boundaries. Leave a card and say “When you are ready to talk, I hope you reach out. We want to honor your loved one through your words, not through news release details, but take your own time.”

Every story, from the single-car rollover that took a life, to the pileup on I-40, to the drive-by shooting to the gang shooting, is a day someone’s heart broke. It starts the clock on a painful yet unrecoverable path of grief. The way you tell the story can either start the healing process or delays it.

Write every story as if it’s your childhood friend’s kid or your cousin, and balance it as much as you would for someone you love, even when it’s a perfect stranger. Find the people who can add the color to the black and white photo handed to you.

Tell the story like it’s your last one because you never know when it will be. Do the family proud, bring your readers and viewers a new level of depth “the other guys” might not take the time to do.

God Bless America, our service members, and everyone who stands up in the face of terror.

This article is written in honor of Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz and the 12 others killed in the Kabul Airport Terrorist Attack.