Life is hard.

And makes no sense.

Today was a hard day at Redwood.  Not everyone knew.  Not everyone noticed.  But I'm sure everyone felt the unspeakable grief that settled on our campus over the weekend.  On Friday, a Redwood student committed suicide, which made today a very dark and somber day, at least for the teachers, and most of the juniors and seniors who actually knew the student.  While I kept teaching as usual, or at least close to it, most of my day was spent thinking over this incident, how it must affect family and close friends, and what it exposes about our school and society at large.

I did not know her.  My only connection to her was through water polo, but we didn't really interact.  Regardless, the fact is inescapable and incompatible with our commonly flippant attitude toward life.  What do you do with this information?  What shelf do you put it on?  What file cabinet drawer do you open?  We have no categories for suicide.  Especially not like this.  A beautiful girl, active in sports, good student, well-known on campus, well-liked.  And it is this girl that goes home for lunch on Friday afternoon, leaves a note for her family, and takes her life.  No warning.  No signs.  No one saw it coming.  What do you do with that?

As the day wore on, the burden heavied.  I was reminded again and again that life can be so hard.  I kept thinking about her family and friends.  How do you handle something like this?  And I kept rehearsing the need to be oh so sensitive and compassionate.  Unnoticed words and inadvertent actions extend in influence far beyond the immediate fallout and often act like innocent drops in a still pond that ripple out into tsunamis years down the road (how you like that mixed metaphor?).

Our society works very hard and does a good job keeping us busy enough to keep us from thinking about life seriously.  The overwhelming drive is for the immediate and for the superficial.  We want now, now, now.  We are promised change right now.  We want better lives, more money, skinnier bodies right now.  And we are fed the lie that it is desirable and it is possible, and we have sunk our teeth so far into this juicy steak that when we are confronted with the harsh realities of life like we were today, we prefer to just take another bite and simply ignore the abyss over which we hang.  Somehow, that is troubling.

Not only do we want the immediate, but we also crave the superficial.  The two look rather alike.  We want to be happy.  We want what feels good.  We'd prefer the proverbial instant high rather than spend hours mulling over the "hard questions" of life.  Because, after all, life is short.  "Come on, live a little."  Sure, we live.  But then we die.  And when will we start thinking about those "hard questions" that we keep putting off?  Oh, I can already hear the answer, "Later.  Come on, we're just teenagers.  When we get older, we'll think about all of that then."  But if a 16-year-old is old enough to commit suicide, when is it too early to think about life seriously, to face the hard questions, to wrestle with moral conundrums, to struggle, to lose sleep, to be honest enough, to be real enough, to look into the abyss and deal with it?  The reason we don't have categories for events like this is because we are intellectually too lazy to think through the issues and come to terms with the reality.  Although it is the most certain and universal reality in the world, we avoid thinking and talking about death at all cost.  And if we do think about it, we usually take the cop-out view that death ceases existence.  We die, and that's all.  While this is a viable position, too often it is based on laziness, not conviction.  We simply refuse to come to terms with death, what it is, and what to do with it.

That is why I believe events like this are so helpful in shaking us up from the nausea of immediacy and superficiality.  Events like this force us to think about death.  Events like this force us to think about life seriously, and deal with it.  Unfortunately, however, as I saw today, too many of us are too numb that we will not be distracted from putting on our make-up and we will not be deterred from stampeding for the latest Wii game, even if we must trample our neighbors.  What will it take for us to wake up?  To see that life is just a tad bit more than stuff and me?  This incident has definitely shaken up many, and has forced many of us to deal with life honestly and seriously.  How long, though, will it take for us to forget?

My freshmen noticed little different about today.  My upper class-men were heartbroken.  Many wore black ribbons in her honor.  We held a vigil for her toward evening by the pool.  A video student expressed interest in creating a memorial video for her.  It has been a hard day.  A somber day.  But necessary to wake us up to the realities of life.