Death in a small town

although the town isn’t really that small

I don’t know if any of you saw the story on the news recently about 4 boys that drowned trying to save each other at a camp in upstate New York (it was in Newsday and in People magazine, among others I’m sure). Three of those boys graduated from my high school 4 years after me. I didn’t know any of them, nor personally know their older siblings, but I was deeply saddened by the story and the loss the families experienced.

About a week ago, my friend L told me that the mother of triplets that were in L’s grade had killed herself, and one of the daughters found her.

Over the weekend, L told me that a boy who graduated 2 years before me (in L’s older brother’s grade) had hung himself. Today at the gym there was a girl who I knew had been in that boy’s grade as well, and I asked if she knew about it. She told me that the boy had just recently passed the bar exam. Also that friends of his who were on their honeymoon right now don’t know yet what happened.

I know these things happen, another guy from my high school killed himself when I was in my freshman year of college. But the strange frequency of these events is so sad. I hope that all those people’s families are managing to cope somehow.

I just needed to vent about it.

I kinda know what you mean… I live not too far away from the town where those guys lived; my mom works for the school district.
A kid who I barely knew but with whom I had a couple classes senior year hanged himself that year. Another senior & a beloved science teacher had both died due to illness the summer before senior year.

Recently (within the past three months) my next-door neighbor’s 20 year-old friend hanged himself.

I get it, but it’s still horrific. I think that the frequency, though, isn’t so high as you think it is… It’s that you happened to know these particular people, to some extent. And that’s not to take anything away from what you’re saying; it’s just to say that maybe things aren’t as messed up as you might first think.