School Struggles to Come to Grips With Loss : Tragedy: Inseparable classmates died while sitting side-by-side when plane crashed in snowy mountains.

Maria Teresa Delgado and Patty Buelna could be found together everywhere they went at Sacred Heart Parish School in Coronado.

The 9-year-old best friends were inseparable, whether chatting together in their fourth-grade class at the tight-knit Catholic school, playing schoolyard games at recess or sharing Maria’s favorite snack--baby food.

And last weekend, when the twin-engine chartered plane they were riding in on a skiing trip to Big Bear crashed in the snowy San Bernardino Mountains, the girls faced death the same way they had faced life, side by side.

The Piper Cheyenne, chartered by Patty’s family for the eagerly awaited trip, slammed into the rugged crags near Angelus Oaks Sunday afternoon, killing all seven people aboard, including Patty’s parents; her brother, Rogelio Jr.; pilot James Enloe of Chula Vista, and co-pilot Jim Davis of San Diego.

This week, students and faculty at Sacred Heart struggled with the reality of the double tragedy, and sought solace through prayer and shared memories of Patti and Maria. “Maria and Patty were like glue. It was a real challenge to try to keep them in their seats,” said their teacher, Joseph Demers. “When I came into class (Wednesday), I told my students that Tuesday was the saddest day we would have, and that we would have to go on.”

The message that teachers, parents and special counselors are trying to convey to the 240 grief-stricken students at the school is that, in the midst of death there is life, and it is appropriate to feel afraid or angry.

The message is an important one because some students have never faced death before and many may have to grapple with feelings that leave them confused, said the school principal.

“We have to show them that it’s OK to be afraid and that we can show our feelings,” said school principal Stevan R. Laaperi. “We are trying to get them to express their feelings as much as possible and to try to get them out in the open.”

A staff of 20 teachers and a counselor are on hand to help students cope with the tragedy that has aroused a myriad of emotions, including fantasies of rescue, Laaperi says.

Students are venting their feelings through drawing pictures of the girls, singing hymns, praying or just talking about the class clowns who just about everyone in school knew.

One child, for example, struggling to understand, wrote out his will when he got home.

Demers’ 24 fourth-grade students have plastered the two bulletin boards in the hallway outside their classroom with a tribute of drawings to Patty and Maria.

Many of the pictures, awkwardly sketched by 9-year-old hands, show the girls as they remember them: good-naturedly fighting over who gets to use the computer or being told, by an exasperated teacher, to please sit down.

Other drawings show the girls on a cloud looking down on earth or shaking hands with God. In one of the sketches, Maria appears to be wearing the white gown she would have worn for her first Communion this spring.

There are plans for a Memorial Mass next week, and already there have been contributions to an endowment fund that will bear the names of the dead youngsters. Students are also busy taking up a collection for charities in Tijuana, where both girls were from.

And Demers says that Patty’s and Maria’s desks will remain just as they left them, perhaps until after the memorial service, when the class might make a shrine in their memory.

But this week, everyone at Sacred Heart seems to be trying to take life one day at a time. “They were very nice kids and they will be sorely missed,” Laaperi said.