The other night, I had the good fortune to spend some time with someone who spent a good portion of his childhood growing up in my home county. While he only spent summers and one year of school in Pocahontas County, he probably comes the closest out of anyone in Oberlin to understanding what my experience there was like. When you come from a community that is different from the norm around you (and this applies for many types of communities, although I can only speak as a member of a rural community), it's nice to spend some time with someone who just "gets it." It's relaxing to not have to explain that you didn't have cell service or a mall 15 minutes away.
While we were talking and I was trying to find out who he knew in Pocahontas County (for a good old gossip sesh), he mentioned a former classmate of his from his time in PC, whose drug-related death during my sophomore year of high school shook our entire community. My friend talked about it in a way that no one who was living and attending school in Pocahontas County could have possibly talked about it. He wasn't exactly nonchalant about it, but he talked about it the same way you would talk about a stranger who your parents had used to illustrate a cautionary tale against drug use. Now I know that my friend wasn't trying to be a jerk or make light of the death of a young person. But he wasn't in Pocahontas County when this boy died, didn't have to attend a school full of shocked and sad students, didn't have to go to a funeral in the middle school gymnasium, didn't wear a black bracelet telling everyone to remember this student's name. While I didn't know the boy who died in any stronger way than you can know someone who leads your line in gym class, I had friends who were close to him. This was the first time I knew a young person who died. Seeing the pain of my classmates and the entire community cemented his death in my head and heart, and I carry the memory of their sadness with me wherever I go. I can recall the date of his birthday more readily than I can recall the birthday's of most of my current friends. I can remember almost every class I went to that day, and trying to reach friends on my parents' tracphone on the soccer bus, to tell them that I loved them.
"Kids die every year at my school," a (now former) friend who went to a much larger school in West Virginia told me over instant messenger when I tried to explain my feelings to a peer outside the county. I don't remember many IM conversations with this person, but that one was one I'd never forget. It's true. Young people die all the time. But that doesn't mean that because your grief is not unique, it is any less valid.
This was not the last time I lost a classmate during high school. The second time, I was closer to the boy who died, and my own emotions ran the gamut from guilt that I wasn't the one who had died, to regret that I had never told this person how inspiring and interesting I found them. He was the only person my age I knew who did radio, and I like to think now that every time I am on the radio now, some of his kindness, humor, and creativity is being channeled through me. Three more former classmates have died since my high school graduation, and I know that their deaths had a huge impact on the people in Pocahontas County. Even though I was away when they happened, the deaths of these 19-22 year olds, two classmates since pre-school, and one friend from high school, had a huge impact on me. Away from my home and the grief of others, my sadness was more private, and in some ways, diluted. But it was still very real to me.
I think it's important to have people in my life who grew up in small towns like mine. They understand what it was like to swim in the river, cause trouble with Airsoft guns, stay up late playing music, know all of your neighbors, and everyone in your school. They probably even understand how quickly rumors spread, how kind people can be, and what it's like to lose a member of the community. But they can never possibly"get," (and it is unrealistic to expect them to,) exactly what it was like to be in your town, in your position, when a young person dies.
This post is dedicated to the memory of Loren, Logan, Jessie, Will, and Kayla.
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