Somber Day

Yesterday was a very tough day (heck, it's been a very tough WEEK) at my work. I don't want to get into a lot of details on here, but there have been four deaths in three different locations in my school district, and two of those deaths were students (and though I didn't know either student, I knew the family of one of them very well). As a result, everyone is kind of in a state of shock, beaten down a little. It's hard not to be sad. One of the secretaries, who is always positive, said in a dreary tone about an hour ago, "I can't wait to get the hell out of this place today!"

As I wrote in my post yesterday, I was in a training out of the district all last week, so I was insulated somewhat from the feeling of gloom. There was one other person from my district in the training with me, and he and I talked about the tragedies a little bit, but mostly heard about it through email, which can make events feel pretty far away.

Even today, when I was back in the office, it wasn't the same as being in the schools where the deaths occurred. In the fourteen years I was in the classroom I dealt on several occasions with the death of students, including one time when one of the most popular senior boys in the school--a Big Man on Campus--died in an alcohol-related auto accident. He was in my homeroom and his locker--where he used to hang out in between classes--was right outside my classroom and became a shrine for mourners. There was no joking or laughter anywhere in the school for more than a week. And I imagine that school was like that today in the buildings where the deaths occurred.

I got a little taste of the mourning earlier today, though. The superintendent wanted to send a message out via our autocalling phone system to all parents letting them know about the deaths of the students and what the district was doing to help students cope. He didn't want the autocalling system to call the homes of the families of the deceased, though, as he felt this would do nothing but cause them more pain, so he asked me to find their phone numbers and remove them temporarily from the system. To do so I had to look up the students' phone numbers in the Student Information System. So I searched for each student and when the name appeared I clicked on it.

And there--because we had placed them into our SIS--was a photo of each student, along with that student's personal information. And that's when the reality of the deaths hit me, when I saw the students' photos. These two students were smiling happily in those photos, taken back in the fall on "Picture Day," unaware of what was waiting for them later in the year. And their birth dates! They were only a few years older than my older daughter. The temporary nature of this whole thing we call life hit me, and I desperately wanted to get home to my daughters, to hug them and tell them that I love them.

You better believe that I will do so when I get home tonight. Of course, you also better believe that my daughters will have no idea why I'm hugging them so tight, and when I tell them I love them they'll probably squirm out of my arms and say, in an annoyed tone, "We know, Dad! We know!"

But no matter in what tone they're said, those words will make my day!