Death needs to take a day off...

This year has been rough. No, I'm not talking about how I spend every waking moment trying to figure out how to increase my students' achievement...that'll be in the next blog. Aren't you excited? This year has been extremely rough on my students. Last week one of our students was killed in a car accident. That is the third confirmed (fourth unconfirmed...there was a rumor that one of last year's graduates committed suicide but I haven't confirmed that rumor yet.) death this year. First, the softball coach and a teacher (just down the hall from my room) passed away suddenly after an anyerism. He was in his early thirties with two young daughters. His death really hit home for me because he was so young. As naive as this may sound, young people aren't supposed to die unexpectedly. Old people die; people who have lived full, long and rich lives. Not this time.

Second, one of my very own students passed away unexpectedly. He played football with some friends after school and took a serious blow to his side. A few hours later at the football awards banquet, he collapsed and died. His spleen had ruptured. I witnessed his last hours as he sat in my class. He asked me a couple questions about the test he was going to take the next day. The conversation was routine and nothing out of the ordinary. As he left my class, I certainly wasn't thinking that I'd never see him alive again.

Life is so fragile. John, the football player who had died, certainly wasn't expecting to die suddenly with no opportunity to say goodbye to his family and friends. Nor did Humberto, the aforementioned victim of the car accident and neither did Coach Hunter, the teacher who died suddenly after an aneurysm. Each day must be lived to its fullest and there is no time for unhappiness. Spending time with loved ones should be my priority especially because one never knows when their time will come. With each death, I reevaluate the condition of my life. Am I where I want to be? Am I spending my time wisely? What if I died tomorrow? Would I be remembered as the finace or son who was always too busy? There are no simple answers to these questions. I spend much of my waking hours working on school work. Those who tell me that I shouldn't take work home with me are crazy. I'd never leave school. Even at night when my fiance has some down time, I am still struggling to plan lessons, to make learning fun and interesting, to grade papers, or to get my own homework done. I rarely find time to relax and spend time with those I love most. Furthermore, I find that because I am teaching and living in northern Mississippi, I am cut off from many of my fellow MTC peers who teach some 2-3 hours to the south of me. Spending time with them is rarely an option. So I find myself wrapped up in my work praying for some spare time to come my way. Unfortunately, the days aren't getting any longer.

So my prayer to God is to get me through this semester and through June (MTC classes) so that I can have at least a few weeks to call my own. Weeks when I can spend time with my finance and catch up with MTC friends. I pray that my students will live life to the fullest and if anything good can come from three deaths I hope that they learn to put life events into perspective. I hope that they can focus less on popularity, drugs, sex and alcohol and more on meaningful relationships and personal triumphs (such as good grades and althletic accomplishments). Most of all, I hope that they won't have to lose any more of their friends to unexpected and tragic circumstances.