Too soon.

School has been a bit surreal the last few days, and will be tomorrow as well. Our school has lost a member of its family, and the sadness in the hallways is tangible. My normally boisterous classes on Friday were practically silent.

A year ago, Jonathan Ingersoll was healthy and happy, charming his teachers and cracking jokes. Around Christmastime, he was diagnosed with leukemia, and although he "fought the good fight", Jonathan passed away on Thursday afternoon. The kids, as you can imagine, are having a hard time dealing with this, and the teachers aren't doing so well, either.

The funeral is tomorrow and I suspect that many students and teachers will be in attendance. I would like to go, but I think I will stay at the school so that someone else can go instead. I will probably go to the funeral home this afternoon. I just really hope it's not an open casket. I don't think I'm ready for that.

Watching the kids the past few days has been difficult, to say the least. Big tough football players who called Jonathan "my buddy" coming in to get work they've missed because they've been at the hospital, their eyes red and their voices subdued. A young girl losing the first real love of her life, not to a silly teenaged squabble but to death. These kids will never be the same.

Although we've lost other students and recent graduates in the nine years I've been teaching, watching someone deal with and finally succumb to cancer is completely different than an accident or drug overdose or war. Cancer is insidious. It steals away the person you love bit by bit, until at the end you're pleadng with it to let him go, and are wracked by guilt for wanting to hasten death. No one should ever have to go through this, let alone a group of kids who write "cell phones" on a list of things that make life worthwhile. People talk about how teenagers these days are too "worldly", but when you work with them every day, you realize just how innocent they are in so many ways. This is one experience I wish they hadn't had to have so early on in life. I am sad for Jonathan and his family. But I'm sadder for these kids who are left behind to process his loss.