Grieving Tuesday

Janie was going to appear again this week, but she must step aside, it turns out, for a girl I never knew.  My daughter didn't know her, either. Not really. They were in the same class of 30 kids last year, and they were friendly. That's it. But this morning, over the loud speaker, the principal announced that the school flag would fly at half mast, and all school clubs were canceled and anyone who had detention could go home. And then they said it was because M had had an asthma attack on Saturday and gone to the hospital and slipped into a coma because she didn't have enough air and on Monday morning, she died.

"Alex cried," E told me over the 'phone. "I've never seen Alex cry."  E noticed everyone's responses, and described them at dinner. The popular boy who - it was so weird- walked up to one of M's good friends - someone who really isn't popular at all, who's an outcast and said, "I know you were close, are you okay?"

And their class - which is normally really chatty - was silent - like totally silent - for 10 minutes. 

And another kid - the one who always jokes around, he started to say to another kid, "woah - what if she isn't dead wouldn't that..." But someone shut him down, and he said, "oh right. right."

She didn't say how she reacted. She didn't say how she felt. She doesn't. She registered that in this moment she learned something integral and unseen about her classmates - about who they were behind the curtain, when there was no show, and there would be no applause.

She reported the facts she'd managed to collect - that she'd cared enough to collect - that M's best friend was with her - that that kid - that her life must be wrecked. That M had a younger brother.

And she made suppositions, too: That Easter will  be endlessly sad, every year for M's family.

We added in the few things we knew - that they were Muslim, and did not celebrate Easter but that this time would be awful, and - that every day - every single day would be terrible for a long long time for that family.

She and her friend K came home and K said, "We are going to grieve." And they dug into the Nutella and the hot sauce and talked in low voices and she asked me if she could skip Jazz because it just didn't feel right. She is a teenager, top to bottom, beginning to end. She cannot make sense of this loss of a peer, of a face disappearing from the hallways without warning. She can't make sense of a child dying. In this respect, she is human, from top to bottom, beginning to end.

Somewhere in a house near this one, a family is facing the unthinkable. Tonight I send them blessings, and strength, because I don't yet no what else to give.  I guess I hope you will, too.