A Tough Day

I've been trying to figure out how I was going to get back into teaching mode. I generally have this problem - I easily become absorbed in work, and find it hard to shift gears to vacation. Time off is never really satisfying, because I expect myself to take that time for personal development. I rarely rest well, because I am preoccupied by what I am not doing to better myself. This has manifested itself before heading back to school, going on missions projects, staring a new job, getting married, etc. And each time something happens to jolt me back to reality. (Except the year that I had knee surgery. That in and of itself was the wake-up call.)

Today, I clicked on my work email to see if there were any more new messages that I wanted to avoid/ignore, when I received a bereavement notice that one of my students had passed away. He took his own life at 15.

To be honest, I'm heartbroken. He was one of "my regulars" who I worked with a fair bit this past year. A good kid, with lots of friends and a spunky personality. You should have seen the number of kids at his viewing!

His obituary said that he was lost in the transition from boyhood to manhood. How sad. His whole family is Christian, in the sense that they attend church. The kids had all gone to private Christian elementary schools, but since moving here they were enrolled in secular high schools. Did he really believe? I don't know. I couldn't find anything useful to say to the parents--what can you say? But here's what no one was able to say to that boy (from the Five for Fighting song 100 Years):

Every day's a new day...
15 there's still time for you
Time to buy and time to choose
Hey 15, there's never a wish better than this
When you only got 100 years to live

Goodbye, my young friend. You will be missed.