2008 Woodie Awards
Remembering the Home Front
Ethan Moore
Issue date: 4/14/06 Section: Opinion
- Page 1 of 1
This past week, my high school had its fourth suicide in less than 18 months. I realize that I've already written about suicide in this space before, so I'm not going to repeat everything I wrote before. However unlike the last suicide involving someone of my high school, which actually featured a graduate who had just begun college, this one featured a junior who had just begun the infamous "college search."
In some ways, this was the "stereotypical" suicidal student, if there is such a thing. He was a very popular student, but was just completely down on life, and never thought it would get any better. I'm sure that we all felt this way in high school at one time, but something or other kept us going, and now we've reached college, where we've (hopefully) realized that life does get better after high school, or, if we were lucky enough to never feel that way in high school, realized that life does continue to stay awesome in college.
Regardless, we did all make it this far and realize that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. However, the reason I am writing this is more than jus about suicide prevention. While I realize that most of our friends from back home probably came from our graduating classes and the older we get, the less people we know who still attend our high school that we went to back home, there probably are still a few people that we might know who are still in high school.
Now, it's very possible that all of the people who you know that are still in high school are doing just fine, cruising along doing fine in school and enjoying life to the fullest and are ready to continue to the same when they move on to a college whose reputation is reflective of the student's capabilities.
But then there are the others, the ones who are not doing as well for whatever reasons, and they just think that for the rest of their life, it will continue to be as bad as it already is. These are the people who need our help the most. Perhaps we can empathize with their troubles or perhaps not, but either way, we made it to the end of high school and have now moved on to college, where we, again, have (hopefully) seen that life does get better. It is so critically important for us to convey our message to those people. While we may not be their closest friends, or even good friends, we can still speak to experiences that we have had that their best friends in the same grade as them have not had.
I realize that my high school is an anomaly in the incredibly high number of suicides it has had in such an incredibly short time span, and I assume/hope that your high school has not experienced the same misfortune; it is not an outlandish expectation to have a suicide-free high school.
However, if we are not proud ambassadors of our message, it is very easy for that reputation to slip away faster than once can believe, which is why we must take this obligation seriously and reach out to those who are still in high school and let them know that yes, life does get better.
In some ways, this was the "stereotypical" suicidal student, if there is such a thing. He was a very popular student, but was just completely down on life, and never thought it would get any better. I'm sure that we all felt this way in high school at one time, but something or other kept us going, and now we've reached college, where we've (hopefully) realized that life does get better after high school, or, if we were lucky enough to never feel that way in high school, realized that life does continue to stay awesome in college.
Regardless, we did all make it this far and realize that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. However, the reason I am writing this is more than jus about suicide prevention. While I realize that most of our friends from back home probably came from our graduating classes and the older we get, the less people we know who still attend our high school that we went to back home, there probably are still a few people that we might know who are still in high school.
Now, it's very possible that all of the people who you know that are still in high school are doing just fine, cruising along doing fine in school and enjoying life to the fullest and are ready to continue to the same when they move on to a college whose reputation is reflective of the student's capabilities.
But then there are the others, the ones who are not doing as well for whatever reasons, and they just think that for the rest of their life, it will continue to be as bad as it already is. These are the people who need our help the most. Perhaps we can empathize with their troubles or perhaps not, but either way, we made it to the end of high school and have now moved on to college, where we, again, have (hopefully) seen that life does get better. It is so critically important for us to convey our message to those people. While we may not be their closest friends, or even good friends, we can still speak to experiences that we have had that their best friends in the same grade as them have not had.
I realize that my high school is an anomaly in the incredibly high number of suicides it has had in such an incredibly short time span, and I assume/hope that your high school has not experienced the same misfortune; it is not an outlandish expectation to have a suicide-free high school.
However, if we are not proud ambassadors of our message, it is very easy for that reputation to slip away faster than once can believe, which is why we must take this obligation seriously and reach out to those who are still in high school and let them know that yes, life does get better.