A day of mourning

By Harold Gwin, Jon Moffett | December 8, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

By HAROLD GWIN and JON MOFFETT

YOUNGSTOWN — Hundreds paid their respects and continue to mourn two Cardinal Mooney High School teens found dead over the weekend.

The high school had a memorial Mass Monday for Jamie Serich, 17, and Colin Hart, 18, both of Boardman. The boys were found in Forest Lawn Cemetery, each with a gunshot wound to the head.

“We gather today as a people of hope,” said Father Ed Noga, of St. Patrick Church in Youngstown, who presided over the Mass attended by about 300 mourners.

Many of those in attendance sought comfort in a few dozen boxes of tissues scattered around the room.

Large pieces of poster board with the boys’ names were hung on a back wall. On them people wrote messages such as, “we love you,” “we’ll miss you forever,” and “you’ll always be in our hearts.” Those who attended were handed a musical program featuring the students’ names. The opening song was “We Are Many Parts.”

Father Noga reminded the congregation of faith. He said a funeral “is as much about the congregation that gathers as the person we’re sending back to the Lord.”

Sister Jane Marie Kudlacz, principal of the high school, said the turnout – which included friends and family as well as students from many local schools – showed how communities come together in times of tragedy. Hart and Serich had been at the school since they were freshmen and were very much a part of the school community, she said.

She said many students showed up at school Sunday after the school put out word that the doors would be open at 2 p.m.

Some 300 students and parents showed up to express their feelings and console each other, she said.

The school also opened its doors at 10 a.m. Monday, making grief counselors available for students who wanted to speak with someone.

“It’s important for us to come together as a school community in prayer because our faith is a tremendous support for us,” she said.

Father Steven Popovich, pastor of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Austintown and chaplain to the Cardinal Mooney football team, was at the school Monday to offer his assistance as a grief counselor.

“When it’s hardest to pray, that’s when we need to pray,” said Father Popovich, a Cardinal Mooney alumnus. “Somehow, the Lord works through the healing.”

There were no classes at Mooney on Monday after the football team won the state Division III title Friday night. The euphoria the school’s 636 students felt Friday was quickly overshadowed by sorrow as word spread of the death of their classmates.

Boxes of championship football sweat shirts sat in the Cardinal Mooney office Monday morning, but that celebration will come at a later time, said Sister Jane Marie.

The focus now is on dealing with the grief the Cardinal Mooney community is feeling, she said.

“We’re trying to be supportive of one another,” she said.

“Right now, grief is the overriding issue,” said Nancy Voitus, a social worker and executive director of Catholic Charities Regional Agency.

The community can be experiencing emotions ranging from shock to anger and parents need to talk to their children about their feelings, Voitus said.

At this point, there is a lot of speculation about what happened, but support of those grieving is the paramount issue, she said.

People sometimes feel bad when they think they could have done something to prevent such a tragedy, and they often don’t know how to deal with those feelings, Voitus said.

The children should be encouraged to express their feelings, either verbally or in writing, she suggested.

Violence in our community and children’s exposure to it is more common that most people realize, said Greg Cvetkovic, executive director of D&E Counseling Center.

It has a life-long impact and can affect their day-to-day functioning and lead to issues with trust levels, he said.

Parents should urge their children to be comfortable to speak with them about what happened and how it is affecting them, Cvetkovic said, adding that, if the child — or the parent — finds that too uncomfortable, the child should be assured that arrangements can be made for him or her to speak with someone at school or with a professional counselor.

There is outside help available, he said, referring to the local Help Hotline Crisis Center and various agencies that offer counseling services.

”We have a community that has some fine agencies,” he said, noting that many of them have walk-in counseling services available that can be visited by students or parents.