The Lies We Believe

I hear a number of sad stories in my classroom. Students don’t typically drop out of high school just because they are lazy and just don’t feel like going to school anymore. They have a story that led them to that point. Often, it is filled with a number of factors that have developed or occurred in their environment as they grew up. Few, if any, of these factors are happy ones. They tend to relate to broken homes, drug abuse, physical abuse, neglect, violence, and poverty among other things.

Today, my students started telling one of these stories. Many times, unless it relates directly to my student, I don’t know the people in the stories they tell me. That wasn’t the case today.

Five years ago, I started working at a local middle school as an aide. I hadn’t graduated yet, but it was my first school job—a precursor to my chosen field.

Five years ago, I was dating someone I had known from youth group. He had a little sister, and she went to my middle school. When she started dating someone, I was told to find out about him and make sure he wasn’t a bad kid. I did my best. He was in one of my classes, but I never worked with him. He was a good student, polite, and didn’t seem to get into trouble. He was suave, the girls loved him, and he had dated a few of them. I remember mentioning that I thought there was something about him that bothered me. I had described it as slightly gothic, but only because I wasn’t familiar with the term “emo.” But that was him. Emo. I gave my report and was told it was fine. My then-boyfriend even took slight offense because he had many of the qualities that had worried me about his sister’s boyfriend. He was right, though. It wasn’t a problem. I think their middle-school romance lasted a month, but I remember it with a slight grin. I’ve seen this student either at school or the store where he worked many times over the years, most recently last week. I would smile at him and wonder if he remembered or even ever knew about that time when he was in 8^th grade.

Today, I am a teacher with the same school district. I couldn’t tell you what ever became of the guy I had dated or his little sister, but I can tell you the boy she dated in middle school is dead.

He died on Sunday from self-inflicted wounds. I didn’t really know him, talk to him, or think of him aside from the times I saw him in passing, but I was still taken aback when I was told this morning.

I’ve known only one other person who died in the same manner, and I remember the devastation she left behind. It is possibly the cruelest thing you can do to those who care about you.

It leaves you to wonder, how bad must life be to end it one month before graduation... one month before the world opens its doors to new opportunities? How lost must one feel to believe there is no more hope for this life? How misled must one feel to believe life has lost its worth?

I can’t imagine, but I do know those things he must have thought and believed were lies. He left a countless number of people wondering what happened and what could they have done to help him.

I was asked if I knew the student. I nodded but didn't say anything else. What could I say?

I don't really know what to say now except that I am constantly blown away by the lies people continue to believe as well as the repercussions of those lies. It is often because personal value and self-worth is placed in accomplishments, failures, or people. When these things inevitably fail, the world seems to crumble.

The only thing that gives life value is the one thing the world can't touch or take away.

Jesus Christ.

Without Him, we are so very lost.