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Kathryn Mayer • Writing Out Loud

I write stuff down. writer • humorist • activist

One Less

November 14, 2008 by Kate Mayer 3 Comments

There’s one less middle school student in my town today. One less Boy Scout, one less baseball player. One less swimmer.  One less brother.  One less son. 

A boy died and our hearts broke. Time stood still while moms, dads, neighbors, teachers, coaches, and friends tried to negotiate the traffic jam of gossip and rumors and finally, sadly, truth. Sometimes you can do everything right and still nothing is okay.

Distraught parents comforted confused children. Kids looked for answers and teachers tried to console. Girls primped, boys donned baseball caps and Boy Scout ties and lined up to pay respects. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of them.  

Cautious teen-aged smiles and head nods dwindled as they approach the doors. Marching stoic into the building, being swept out with sobs and tears and crumbling knees.  The kids feel the loss, but it is their parents that can’t begin to fathom such pain. It is only with eye contact and touch that we can connect to the mom and dad left behind. There is nothing to say. We don’t know how to act, what to feel. We don’t ever want to know how to stand aside your child’s coffin and comfort his friends who will grow up and grow old while your own is forever halted at 13. 

We can pay our respects, we can cook and carpool and clean and mow and coach and teach – anything to ease their burden and avoid facing the undeniable fact that this could be any one of us. Any family.

This is my town. Where one boy dies and everyone loses a son. 


Dirty Job but Someone’s Got to Do It
All Was Calm

Comments

  1. Anonymous says

    November 15, 2008 at 9:50 pm

    Am so sorry to hear… The loss of someone so young is especially heartbreaking.

    Reply
  2. Anonymous says

    November 16, 2008 at 3:11 am

    For any parent the worst feeling in the world is to outlive your child. My heart, thoughts and prayers go out for your neighbor in their loss.

    Reply
  3. vbjenn says

    November 18, 2008 at 10:57 am

    What timing, and how sad… we lost a student yesterday. He chose a permanent solution to a temporary problem, and he will be missed. My heart goes out to your town, and to all towns and schools that lost someone. The face of my school is forever changed, as is your town.

    Reply

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About Kathryn Mayer

Kathryn Mayer

An irreverent storyteller with a foul mouth and big heart, Kathryn Mayer (aka Kathy and/or Kate) is a writer, humorist, and (former) activist writing out loud with humor and grace about little life moments with big ripples, including the space between parenting and aging parents, social issues, angsty reflections of midlife, and, sigh, gun humpers. Still. Sometimes a big deal, sometimes not Mayer is a national award-winning columnist, according to the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, and her essays have been recognized as Voice of … Read More Here...

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