Memoriam

This week has been a difficult one in our small community. A young teacher in Ivy's school suddenly was gone -- dying a week after being diagnosed with leukemia. These sorts of things shake folks all the way to their core. We don't expect young people just to die. And so his fellow teachers, with their own mortality staring them right in the face, took on the task of comforting their students. Kids on the brink of entering adulthood have such wild emotions on a normal day that the loss of a teacher -- the loss of their sense of immortality -- unleashes a torrent of grief that is like no other. On Thursday it would have been Mr. Bender's 35th birthday. The students, looking for a way to send birthday wishes, wore purple as a way of saying, "we remember." 'There is hope,' I thought, when I heard of this gesture. What a kind sort of thing for our children to do! And I thought of the people I've loved who have gone before me, and I remembered the lessons I've learned from their passing. It is not our job to do something for the people who die. That is beyond our scope. It is our job to go on living and to teach our children how to sing in spite of their sadness. Goodbye, Mr. Bender. Your students will sing, because they will remember how much you loved life.