A Rough Week
Don't you hate it when people don't post for weeks and weeks and then they do and it's a real downer? Sorry. Can't be helped.
This past week a classmate of my 13 year old son committed suicide. Details are unclear because rumors are running rampant, and we don't really know anyone close to the family to ask, but from what we understand, it was a gunshot and there may have been bipolar disorder involved. My son wasn't close friends with him, but they were in several classes together, including the college-level math class they both had at the University. My son has been pretty shaken up by the whole thing. By all outward signs the boy was fairly normal - friends to sit with at lunch, played baseball and football, and very bright. He certainly didn't show any outward signs of being suicidal. My son wanted to go to the funeral, so we did. Nearly all the kids on the boy's last baseball team showed up wearing their red jerseys. The parents looked as anguished as you'd expect them to be. It was one of the saddest events I've ever attended.
The situation has made me very melancholy, and I've spent quite a bit of time this week thinking about mortality, and my priorities and my beautiful children.
How similarly devastating it must be for all of those people in Japan who lost loved ones and all their possessions too. When they woke up that morning, life seemed normal. And then it wasn't.
Hug your loved ones whenever you can. Be kind to one another. Savor each day as if it was your last.
This past week a classmate of my 13 year old son committed suicide. Details are unclear because rumors are running rampant, and we don't really know anyone close to the family to ask, but from what we understand, it was a gunshot and there may have been bipolar disorder involved. My son wasn't close friends with him, but they were in several classes together, including the college-level math class they both had at the University. My son has been pretty shaken up by the whole thing. By all outward signs the boy was fairly normal - friends to sit with at lunch, played baseball and football, and very bright. He certainly didn't show any outward signs of being suicidal. My son wanted to go to the funeral, so we did. Nearly all the kids on the boy's last baseball team showed up wearing their red jerseys. The parents looked as anguished as you'd expect them to be. It was one of the saddest events I've ever attended.
The situation has made me very melancholy, and I've spent quite a bit of time this week thinking about mortality, and my priorities and my beautiful children.
How similarly devastating it must be for all of those people in Japan who lost loved ones and all their possessions too. When they woke up that morning, life seemed normal. And then it wasn't.
Hug your loved ones whenever you can. Be kind to one another. Savor each day as if it was your last.