It is with deep sadness I write this article. It is the Christmas season, a time of joy and a time of hope. Yet today there is one less student walking the halls of my daughters school. For the second time in 90 days a classmate of my daughter has taken his own life. What do you say to your sixteen year old daughter when she tells you another one of her classmates has killed himself. A boy she knows has decided life is too hard, a boy decides only death will take away the pain.
I was walking through the grocery store later that night and I was adding items to my cart I thought my daughter would like. I stopped and thought of this young man’s parents, will his mother find herself adding an item to her shopping cart for her son, suddenly remembering. Are there already presents under the tree with his name on them. Standing there in the grocery aisle I wanted to cry, my heart was breaking for this young man, for his family, for his friends and for my daughter.
A poem was given to me a few years ago by a high school student, this is what she wrote: Titled --Care “Nobody knows where she came from, Nobody knows her name. She sits quietly in class, as invisible as a ghost. Her hair is a long scraggly mess, Her cloths are dark from wear. She has a black string around her neck. On which she wears a broken heart. She never talks or says a word, Silent as a winters night. The bruises on her skin show clear, and no one really cares. Everyone seems to look, but no one actually sees. They walk on by her teary face, Without a second glance. O, what people go through for the want of a friend. She looks very thin, Her face so gaunt. Her pain is so great, It’s almost impossible to bear. She sits in the dark, Bathing in her misery. She hopes there will be a day that someone will bring her salvation. She waits in agony, Slowing sinking down. Why should she continue to fight, If no one even cares? The pain finally gets too great, And the love not great enough. She ends the pain in her own way, And no one even cared. O what people go through For the want of a friend.”
Almost everyday kids are leaving messages on the face book page of the young man who took his life back in October. They talk to him, they tell him how much he is missed. They are looking for healing, for someone to hear their voice.
In her poem the young woman wrote, “She hopes there will be a day, That someone will bring her salvation.” Christmas celebrates that day, the verse from Luke are the words of an old man named Simeon who held the baby Jesus in his arms and said, “I have seen the Savior.” This Christmas let us share the love of the Savior Jesus with people around us who are hurting. Let us share His joy with people who are finding the pain too great. This Christmas let them know that we do care.
