Kumbaya

I just can’t stop thinking about the missing youth campers in Texas.

Anyone who has been lucky enough to experience summer camp knows it is a special time. Magical, even. A brief slice of time during summer vacations that we didn’t realize would come to a screeching halt once adulthood set in. Whether your family could afford to enroll you in just one session or all of them, you knew you were lucky and embraced every moment. Each summer, that time spent with bunkmates and counselors you idolized was priceless. Each summer’s memories built upon those from the past. You looked forward to seeing old friends from previous years as much as you anticipated making new friends.

In well-established camps, a hierarchy is formed, with younger kids being assigned to certain camp sites and bunks and older kids to different areas. Each summer, you would anticipate moving up an age group, getting assigned to a more prestigious cabin or perhaps lucking out by getting everyone’s favorite cabin counselor.

Many campers start young, work their way through all the age groups and then become counselors-in-training and eventually full-fledged staff. And I can tell you from experience that staff members cherish their camp time as much as the campers, and we build and maintain just as many, if not more, special memories as the summers begin to fade into each other. To say a sense of family develops is an understatement.

I was not able to attend camp as a kid, so I made up for it by working as both a summer playground leader and then counselor, assistant director and director of an eight-week day camp.

It is with that experience and those memories behind me that I am so consumed by the tragic deaths and catastrophic damage caused by flash flooding in central Texas.

As is being well-reported by news outlets, the Guadalupe River rose 26 feet in just 30 minutes. And because nature doesn’t adhere to a eight-hour work day, the river rose at 3:30 in the morning, when most people were sound asleep. There was no time for evacuation orders and no time to react.

At Camp Mystic, a girls Christian summer camp situated along the Guadalupe, many campers are still unaccounted for and presumed dead. Cabins along the river were washed away, and most surviving campers were those housed in cabins on higher ground, according to news reports.

At Camp Heart o’ the Hills, also along the Guadalupe, the outcome was a little better, at least in terms of lost lives, thanks to an administrative decision made several years ago to not have camp in session on July 4. While campers were not staying at the camp at the time, staff and administrators were. Camp co-owner Jane Ragsdale was killed while trying to assist her staff in getting to safer conditions, according to many news outlets. The camp’s Facebook page has been inundated with emotional tributes to Jane, posted by campers from the past five decades.

Heart o' the Hills Camp director Jane Ragsdale.
Facebook photo

Judging from the comments shared, combined with the numerous photos and videos posted, Jane was a saint on earth. Her father was a camp owner and director so she grew up in the camping community; it was in her blood, She attended camp as a child and worked at camps before buying her own. Jane had a positive impact on countless girls, many of whom paid tribute on Facebook.

“She was one of the first people in my childhood who truly saw me, loved me and guided me,” one former camper wrote. “It was at camp that the person God created me to be truly came alive.”

Another wrote simply: “Heart camp girls we’ll always be. Till we meet again.”

“She was the heart of the Heart,” according to many commenters.

Jane Ragsdale was just one of many caring adults who devoted their entire adult lives to providing a childhood rite of passage to thousands of children, as well as being a mentor to hundreds of young people working their first jobs.

Dick Eastland, who had owned Camp Mystic since 1974, also died when his camp was swept away.

“Camp Mystic’s Dick Eastland no doubt gave his life attempting to save his campers,” a Texas politician wrote on a social media outlet. “For decades he and his wife Tweety poured [their lives] into loving and developing girls and women of character. Thank you, Mr. Eastland. We love you and miss you."

My heart goes out to the camp workers, especially at Mystic, where so many young lives were lost. I know from my experience, I was always counting heads and was constantly aware of where my assigned kids were at all times. No one went anywhere alone; the buddy system was real! Whether in the swimming pool or locker room, on a hike through the woods, making sand candles along the bank of the creek or sitting at a picnic table working on crafts, I was counting heads. When we hiked in the woods or traveled to a different part of the camp for an activity, there was a counselor at the front of the group and another behind the last kid. And when the inevitable happened, like a skinned knee or a bee sting, I always wondered if I could have prevented the incident.

Camp Heritage, where I worked for four summers, was a day camp with four two-week sessions each summer. Every two weeks, an overnight campout was held the second Thursday of the session. We pitched big cabin-sized tents on the athletic fields and each unit got two tents, one for boys and one for girls. Even with all the tents visible and on a wide-open field, there were those of us who didn’t sleep all night. Administrators huddled at picnic tables under a gazebo that sat on a hill overlooking the field and eyes watched those tents all night.

In short, folks in charge of kids, whether in school, summer camp, day care, church or sporting events, take their responsibilities seriously. Parents will mourn these lost children until their own deaths. But trust me when I tell you those camp workers will mourn those children until they too take their final breaths.

The summer camp experience will never be the same for any of the people involved. What is supposed to be a carefree youth experience will now and forever elicit horrible memories. Images of destroyed campgrounds with be interspersed with images of happy-go-lucky children — singing songs around a campfire, kayaking on the river, riding a horse, or performing in a skit — who didn't return home one summer.

My heart goes out to all the parents, grandparents, siblings and other relatives, friends and neighbors who lost family members, colleagues and young charges. Their lives will never be the same. They will carry this with them forever.

But I care equally for all the surviving camp workers, many of whom are young themselves. A catastrophic event like this, in addition to taking lives, can permanently alter the life paths of the survivors. Some will take it and become stronger, more resilient. Others might not be so lucky; their lives may forever be weakened or perhaps even derailed after experiencing such a tragedy.

I am hoping the tightly-knit camping community has already put its arms around the people of this central Texas area. Campers are a special group and I hope the magic and love of that community can help the healing begin.