As the days drag on and the Crandall Canyon Mine refuses to reveal its secrets, the families in Huntington face an inescapable truth: They may never know what happened to their miners.
It is this uncertainty, and the possibility of never recovering the men's bodies, that can compound grief, psychologists say.
If the six trapped miners are never found, it will be impossible to know when or how they died or whether they suffered, although it's human to imagine the worst. "It's agony," says Salt Lake therapist Cheri Reynolds, past president of the Utah Psychological Association.
People have watched this kind of uncertainty before, when children are kidnapped or go missing in the mountains. But, as some consolation, those families could help with the search, could traipse through the woods for days, looking. The miners' families have had to sit and wait.
Their distress, Reynolds says, is exacerbated by not having any control. "When our loved one is dying of an illness, we can put a cloth on their forehead; we can tell them we love them." But the miners' families are powerless. "And now they see those in charge are powerless as well."
That lack of control, in a sense, has marked their days as miners and miners' families.
"They knew they had no control over their own destinies," says Dr. Kathleen Hall, founder of The Stress Institute in Atlanta and the granddaughter of a West Virginia miner. "If they wanted to put in more safe boxes or more oxygen, it was the owners of the mine who decided."
In mining communities, "whole families are defined by chronic stress, especially the way they were mining in Utah," Hall says.
The waiting of the past two weeks has compounded the stress. The longer the waiting, and with the waiting the reliving of the possibilities — did he live for a week? did he suffocate? — the greater the risk for post-traumatic stress disorder, Hall says.
On the one hand, the families are like every other family that has experienced dread and hope and dread when a loved one is deathly ill, Salt Lake psychologist Mark Owens says. On the other hand, it's all happening "with the addition of a national spotlight and perhaps questionable mining practices, and the question of whether the government has done everything they can to make this a safe mine."
If the miners are never found and their bodies never recovered, the families also face having to mourn without a body to bury or cremate. That makes it harder to say goodbye, says Rob Pramann of Shepherd's Staff Christian Counseling Center in Sandy.
"Those whose loved ones have not been located are deprived of the ability to honor them, to forgive and seek forgiveness, to assure that they have been laid to rest in peace," psychologist Reynolds adds. "They have been deprived of sanctuary."
What will be important, she says, is for each family — and even the community — to have another place to visit and commune with their dead. A favorite spot. A tree planted in their memory.
E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com