Man o man.
This thing called life just knocks the wind out of you sometimes.
The first thing out of my middle schoolers mouth when I picked him up from school yesterday was, “Kids told me Mrs. Matheus’ son died. She got a call during 6th period that he died. He’s in the Air Force. We watched her walk out to her car and leave.”
First off. How Awful.
Nothing is worse than your child dying.
Second off. She had to find out that horrible news in front of a bunch of 11 and 12 year olds.
Fast forward two hours, back at our house, with me at the computer checking to see if soccer practice was still on.
I open an email from my boys’ swim coach.
It informs me that one of the summer swim coaches has died.
He was 21.
It was self-inflicted.
First off. Again. How awful.
Just being a parent makes my heart break with this news.
I only knew this kid from afar.
He was always smiling and laughing with the kids and the other coaches.
For three years my kids knew him and loved him.
Second off. How dare you? Why would you do such a thing?
I’m not really mad at him. I’m disappointed and sad for my kids.
And heartbroken for his family and friends.
I know I will never know what led him to that decision and I’m not sure I need to know.
But I do know that I will continue to tell my kids everyday that I will always love them, forever and ever, no matter what.
I chose not to share with my kids the manner in which Coach Jake died. That’s too much information for even an adult to comprehend, never mind an 8 year old. He died. His family is sad. We are sad.
The next day I again picked my son up from middle school and asked him if he had a substitute in Mrs. Matheus’ class.
“No. It was actually her dog that died not her son.”
We had a bit of a laugh, learned never to completely trust the word of middle schoolers sharing information in the hallways, and went on with our day.
And I may have told him thirty times that day, ” I will always love you, forever and ever, no matter what.”
*I never use real names in my blog except those of my children.
Ugh. Heartbreaking. We dealt with a death at our school last year. The teacher for the before and after school YMCA was hit by a car crossing at a crosswalk on her way home from school. Younger than me. Horrid. But I think it’s the adults that take it harder than the little ones. At least in my case. We didn’t go into excruciating detail, but they did know she was hit and killed. It basically turned into a lesson for crossing the street and understanding that drivers aren’t always paying attention. They aren’t old enough to feel the pain of “why.” Thank God. There’s a tree planted with her name on a plaque on the playground. It was awful and still horribly sad.