We'll call him Kevin,
although that's not his real name. I don't know him or his family, but
then for purposes of this essay I don't need to. In my long experience
with teens I've known so many kids like him that it's not hard to
imagine from what I've been reading and the pictures I've been
seeingwhat he was like and what effect he had on others.
He was the quarterback on the football team at a nearby school not
unlike Lynn's. He was preparing for the senior prom next weekend, and
graduation a few weeks after that. He'd signed a letter of intent to
play Division I football next year at a respected university where his
the quality of his scholarship was as important to his admission as the
quality of his athletic skills.
He didn't go to school on Thursday. Late in the afternoon someone saw
him in his Jeep Cherokee driving through town. He didn't come home
Thursday night. Friday's paper reported him missing. A search was begun.
Today's paper conveyed the sad news. His Jeep was spotted in the
parking lot of a rural church (not the one he attended). His body was
found in the woods behind the church. He was dead of what has been
ruled a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
No one interviewed for the article was able to give even the slightest
suggestion of what might have led this dazzling young man to seek a
permanent solution to what must surely have been a temporary problem.
His friends are baffled, his teachers and coaches mystified, the
sportswriter who knew him well left without adequate words to describe
his bewilderment. The article included remarks by a local psychologist
about the
warning
signs of teen suicide. But the people interviewed insist none of
those signs was present.
In my long teaching career I coped with the deaths of several students,
most of them from accident or chronic disease. Only one of them was a
suicide. The principal at the time had strong feelings about how the
professional staff should react.in this situation. He believed that
references to the tragedy should be minimal, that at no time should the
act appear to be glorified through memorial displays (even temporary
ones), and that faculty should appear to go about their business as if
the student had merely transferred to another school. He thought this
minimized the possibility that there might be copycat acts or attempts
by lonely and troubled youngsters who might think this was a good way
to get some attention.
I find myself troubled and sad tonight. There's already been more in
the newspaper and on the television than I think anybody not connected
with the family needs to know about the circumstances surrounding
Kevin's death. Things will only get worse in the days leading up to the
funeral, which will probably be later this week.
I look hard at his senior picture spread across two columns in the
paper. Our refrigerator door is covered right now with the dozens of
pictures of Lynn's classmates that she has collected over this year.
Kevin's picture would fit right in. He was just Lynn's age. His mother
and I must have been pregnant at the same time. I think of her tonight
in her unfathomable grief, and I weep for her.