It was one week ago today that I flipped on the radio in the middle of a news report about another shooting at a high school. “Oh no, not again,” I thought. For the first time since the 70s, I started yearning for the end of the school year, except now I hoped there might be an end to the opportunities for violence. No one dead this time, only wounded; I relaxed a bit. Then the reporter signed off from Conyers, Georgia. My heart froze and I stopped breathing. My cousin’s daughter, my goddaughter, is a high school senior in Conyers, Georgia. I pretend I’m equally concerned about the fate of all children, but I’m not. I rushed to my desk, to find Katie’s graduation announcement, it would have the name of her high school on it. It did, and the name of the school she attends is Salem, not Heritage. I relaxed, but I knew somewhere other relatives were feeling the same fear around their hearts I experienced, but for them, more information about the shooting would increase their anxiety.
After an exchange of e-mail, I learned Katie is indeed all right and finds the whole thing “surreal,” what with Conyers splashed across the national media. Conyers, Georgia, like Littleton, Colorado, is a town that attracts people by virtue of its non-newsworthiness. It’s a quiet town, a good place to raise your kids. A place where nothing ever happens, except the events of last week and last month give testimony that something is always happening and we put ourselves in peril to pretend it is not happening.
The last days of high school are a joyful time, but stressful, too. Celebration and anxiety both feed a quickening pulse and a release of adrenaline. It is the definitive end of youth; high school commencement is one of the most prominent rituals of our national religion.
Twenty years ago this week, I was preparing to graduate from high school. Two weeks before finals, the vice principal pulled me out of class and told me one of my friends had dropped out of school. I was sent to his house to talk to him, and he came back and graduated.
I wasn’t in good shape myself. I was infatuated with my best friend’s girlfriend, I was sure she was ready to reciprocate and I felt like I deserved a punch in the nose. I was sure I was flunking calculus, especially after I showed up for the final with a vodka-and-lime juice hangover. The drinking age at the time was 18 and we sublimated our stress with bouts of legal inebriation. One day, as I walked through a hallway with gloom in my eyes, a teacher pulled me into an empty classroom and asked if everything was all right. We talked for a while and after, things were better, if not all right.
Things were not all right for many of us and that evening, one of my friends committed suicide. When I heard the news, my heart was gripped with cold fear, just as it was when I heard about Conyers. Twenty years ago, further information confirmed the rumor and anxiety gave way to grief. Like the shooting at Conyers, Margaret’s suicide definitively ended youth for my friends and I, a grim punctuation mark at the end of the chapter called “High School.”
I think of Margaret every year about this time, as Conyers students will remember T.J. Solomon and their wounded friends. A few days, a week, would have made so much difference, would have eased so much pressure. The timely intervention of a vice principal or teacher, the ten-minute conversation that cannot make everything all right, but perhaps bearable.
Being a teenager was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. If you’re around high-school students this week, talk to them. Better yet, listen.
Rites of Passage
It was one week ago today that I flipped on the radio in the middle of a news report about another shooting at a high school. “Oh no, not again,” I thought. For the first time since the 70s, I started yearning for the end of the school year, except now I hoped there might be an end to the opportunities for violence. No one dead this time, only wounded; I relaxed a bit. Then the reporter signed off from Conyers, Georgia. My heart froze and I stopped breathing. My cousin’s daughter, my goddaughter, is a high school senior in Conyers, Georgia. I pretend I’m equally concerned about the fate of all children, but I’m not. I rushed to my desk, to find Katie’s graduation announcement, it would have the name of her high school on it. It did, and the name of the school she attends is Salem, not Heritage. I relaxed, but I knew somewhere other relatives were feeling the same fear around their hearts I experienced, but for them, more information about the shooting would increase their anxiety.
After an exchange of e-mail, I learned Katie is indeed all right and finds the whole thing “surreal,” what with Conyers splashed across the national media. Conyers, Georgia, like Littleton, Colorado, is a town that attracts people by virtue of its non-newsworthiness. It’s a quiet town, a good place to raise your kids. A place where nothing ever happens, except the events of last week and last month give testimony that something is always happening and we put ourselves in peril to pretend it is not happening.
The last days of high school are a joyful time, but stressful, too. Celebration and anxiety both feed a quickening pulse and a release of adrenaline. It is the definitive end of youth; high school commencement is one of the most prominent rituals of our national religion.
Twenty years ago this week, I was preparing to graduate from high school. Two weeks before finals, the vice principal pulled me out of class and told me one of my friends had dropped out of school. I was sent to his house to talk to him, and he came back and graduated.
I wasn’t in good shape myself. I was infatuated with my best friend’s girlfriend, I was sure she was ready to reciprocate and I felt like I deserved a punch in the nose. I was sure I was flunking calculus, especially after I showed up for the final with a vodka-and-lime juice hangover. The drinking age at the time was 18 and we sublimated our stress with bouts of legal inebriation. One day, as I walked through a hallway with gloom in my eyes, a teacher pulled me into an empty classroom and asked if everything was all right. We talked for a while and after, things were better, if not all right.
Things were not all right for many of us and that evening, one of my friends committed suicide. When I heard the news, my heart was gripped with cold fear, just as it was when I heard about Conyers. Twenty years ago, further information confirmed the rumor and anxiety gave way to grief. Like the shooting at Conyers, Margaret’s suicide definitively ended youth for my friends and I, a grim punctuation mark at the end of the chapter called “High School.”
I think of Margaret every year about this time, as Conyers students will remember T.J. Solomon and their wounded friends. A few days, a week, would have made so much difference, would have eased so much pressure. The timely intervention of a vice principal or teacher, the ten-minute conversation that cannot make everything all right, but perhaps bearable.
Being a teenager was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. If you’re around high-school students this week, talk to them. Better yet, listen.