I was 16 the first time my classmate, teammate, and recent class partner made the devastating choice to end his life. I remember scrolling through my Instagram feed when I saw a friend's "RIP" post. My heart dropped into my stomach. As twisted as it sounds, my first thoughts were I hope he was secretly ill; I just didn't want to believe someone as kind as he was would find their life meaningless. It turns out he was ill, but not with something was understood and respected as cancer. For years, he had battled depression and mental illness. His fight was not comforted by prayer vigils or even supportive comments on his Facebook wall. He fought silently, or at least he didn't fight outright vocally. Now that he was gone, everything he ever said or did seemed like an subtle cry for help, but I was too busy arguing with my friends about where to have prom dinner to notice. I won't blame his death all myself, though. Many of us were in his reach, but were so self and friend group obsessed that we couldn't notice a nearby outsider.
His death didn't go unnoticed. In fact, the entire school seemed to be impacted by his death. Totino-Grace is a relatively small private Catholic high school in "friendly" Fridley, Minn. Students and teachers alike cried out with pain. I think everyone felt guilty, and everyone had someone else they wanted to blame. At the time, it was so easy to blame administration. We had so many conflicts my junior year with "gay" relations, and it just so happened that, a few months prior to his death, the young man revealed he was gay.
Our school president forcibly resigned after admitting to being in a same-sex relationship with whom he had adopted children. One of our campus ministers, feeling so moved by our president's resignation, admitted in front of a room full of teachers that she too was gay. The media went crazy at the beginning of the school year, and our school was forced to discuss the matter with students. They held an assembly were they asked students to be respectful to others' views on the situation, but mainly they were subtly suggesting we stop talking about it. I remember thinking about English class when we read "Huckleberry Finn," and my English teacher, a very wise man, said there is a difference between "civilizing" and "sivilizing." "Sivilizing" is when society tries to ingrain certain beliefs in all its members. In "Huckleberry Finn" he was suppose to be "sivilized" to hate black people. At Catholic school, it seemed are administration wanted us to agree that gay staff members were a threat to the archdioceses. All of this prior to the death that forever changed our community.
Our school, our teachers, our campus ministry leaders, even our administration did everything they could to support the young man's family and friends. We grieved as a community. This was the first time, but not the last time, I would sing at one of my classmates funerals.
Moving forward, the suicide continued to impacted our community greatly. It was all good at first. People seemed more kind to each other. We started to notice people who sat alone or stayed away from the Commons to avoid being left out. Then, our world flipped upside down again, just a few weeks later another suicide occurred in our small concentrate halls. Her family choose to keep things private, and because I had never knew her personally, I truly to this day do not know her story. However, it is not uncommon for suicides to occur one right after another in a small community. Its not so much the desire to receive the same love and attention as the other fallen member, but rather it opens the door to see suicide is an option to end what seems like a never-ending disease.
Our community at Totino-Grace is small, there is only about 200 kids roughly per grade. We walk in the small four hallways that connect our classrooms. We eat and hangout in the small Commons every lunch period and every morning before homeroom. We await the same bells. We wear the same uniforms. We repeat the same prayerful response, "Live Jesus in our hearts...Forever."
I am now an alumni of Totino-Grace, and I still want and always will want to be a part of our community. However, I have accepted that we will never be perfect. Since the time of my junior year, and the time that the suicides occurred, almost half our our teachers resigned and took jobs elsewhere while two more lives have left our community. One passed after a painful battle with brain cancer, and another passed after fighting a hard battle with depression. Let me be frank when I say that no "one" death was more impactful or meaningful than another.
Every community values its members. However, a community as small and close-knit as ours really notices when someone goes missing. Those who lost their battles in life were loved, are loved, and will continued to be loved and missed forever. And we pray, as a community, that God holds them tight in heaven where they can finally find peace. "Live Jesus in our hearts... Forever."
