Grieving

One of my students passed away this week. It's been a few days now, and I guess I'm still processing. This is the first time this has happened, really, and it's the strange little details that are the most disturbing. I was sitting in my office holding conferences all damn day yesterday after receiving an email from campus judiciaries. All day long I was looking at his name on the sign-up sheet and wondering what would happen at 2:00 when he wasn't going to be there. Every time I flipped through the stack of graded papers I was returning to people in these conferences, I would see his paper. I suppose the obvious thing would have been to remove it from the stack, but I just couldn't find my way to doing that. It's the weirdest thing. We weren't friends, of course, by any stretch. By his own admission, he didn't like me. (As a matter of principle, due to childhood trauma, he didn't like any English teachers.) In class he was erratic and off-beat, unpredictable and slightly disruptive. He was quite bright but not extremely motivated. He wanted to major in philosophy and admired H.P. Lovecraft. Other than those tidbits and a partially completed paper on which he'd received a C-, I don't have anything else. All my comments on his work went something like this: "Jack (not his real name), This is a very engaging and promising discussion of these texts. I'd really like to see where you would go with this if you expand it to fulfill the page requirement for this paper. [and so on]." It's refreshing, really, because most of the papers I get are so deeply uninspired and banal. This not because the students themselves are either of these things but because they're not sinking much of themselves into their 4-6 page paper for composition. In short, he was the kind of student you noticed.

I've been thinking that if there's a memorial service I'll attend. As far as talking about this with my class? I don't know. I need to, of course. While I work really hard on a rather jovial and cool rapport with my students, I wouldn't describe it as in any sense touchy-feely. A lot of the advice I've gotten from people is targeted at a different kind of teacher, I think. A collage? A collaborative epitaph? A heartfelt outpouring? I'm not sure yet what I'll be able to manage. The one thing I know for sure is that I can't say nothing. You know? I might send an email this weekend just to make sure every one knows. Then, when I bring it up in class on Tuesday, perhaps it will be less...surprising? Abrasive? Otherwise unexpected? Truly, I'm at a loss and very much grateful for the intervening week that will let me gather my thoughts. David, I think, was right on when he said to me earlier that there really is no right thing.