Four too many

I've had this twitch in my left eye for a couple of weeks. A literal twitch.

Saturday I got a text from one of my teens asking if I had heard about Peter Grider.

I knew then that something bad had happened because you don't typically get asked that when it's happy news.

Peter committed suicide last Tuesday, and was found Saturday hanging in his home.

Two memories have been playing in my head over the past couple of days. The first is from sophomore year of high school. It was our first girls night. It was me, Emily Murphy, Calin Young, Emma Parker, and Ashley Wilkinson. We had gone cosmic bowling that night. We won first place in the hokie pokie, I thank you. That night on our way back to Ashley's we decided to that we were going to go to Peter's house and sneak in. Emma and Peter were dating. So we pull up with our headlights turned off, and parked half way down the drive way. We walked the rest of the way up and snuck into the basement. Toby had a bunch of boys over. So us girls sneaking  into Peter's house was one memory I thought about.

The second memory was from the day that Peter and I had our picture taken for the year book. We were the 2006 Class Clowns. We took several different pictures. The one that we had chose to use was a picture were Peter was standing in his boxers and I was pointing and laughing. Needless to say that did not make it into the year book.

I have so many things running through my head right now. 1) Toby. He was my first thought Saturday when I found out. 2) I've been thinking alot about Ashton the past couple of weeks. Alot. 3) This makes friend and classmate number four that our senior class has lost. 4) That could've been any of us.

The funeral was tonight. Saw lots of classmates and old friends. But ya know, what a crappy way for us to have a class reunion?

This is the 4th death in the past two weeks in this community, and the 3rd suicide in this community in the past two weeks.

I am confused. I am frustrated. I am sad. I am just so so so confused. And so very angry.

These kids are killing themselves. Literally. Why?

People keeping trying to make themselves feel better about all of this. And people talk about the things we need to do as a community. Like building a student center. I'm not concerned about a building. I'm concerned about these kids. I'm concerned about my friends. Not a stupid building.

I mean, How many more times must this place be brought to its knees, before people open their eyes and look beyond their own lives?

(shakes head)