There are too many of us.

In my work as a substitute teacher, suicide comes up all the time.   Of course, I live with the grim residue of suicide every day, but the fact that it is such an ever present topic in our schools reminds me that I am not alone as a suicide survivor.   There are too many of us.

Tragically, a local high school student took his own life last week.  A freshman.  Our community is large – maybe ten high schools – and the only way that I heard about the boy'’s death was shocked chatter in a teacher’s lounge. 

There was no notice in the paper, no obituary, no public word. I looked.  Everything is very hush, hush.  I guess that’s pretty typical; we didn’t place a public announcement either.  The people that needed to know found out.  But I will also admit that Molly’s death felt like a personal failure and at the time the last thing we wanted was public scrutiny.  I think I feel a bit differently now; whatever else her death is, it is not a personal failure.

My heart goes out to the boy’s parents and I hope that they discover fairly quickly that there are many of us – living right here in their own community – who live everyday with this loss.  We are hidden and unsure about how to be publicly supportive.  But we are here.

This is not the first suicide in our schools and administrators do not shy away from the topic.   Suicide awareness posters are publicly displayed;   just today a speaker in a high school talked about his suicide attempt; bullying prevention is part of the required curriculum at all grade levels; administrators are taking the possibility of suicide very seriously.

Of course, awareness will never be enough – but it is an important place to start.  It shocks me that at one point I actually thought that it wouldn’t happen to me.  I knew it might – I just didn’t believe it could.  And I was wrong.