Loss and grief
This is part of being a teacher as well. One of our students is dead. There have been students that died before, but none while they were still at the college. It is not easy to deal with. I am spending tonight with my teen-agers. They fill the house with sounds, practicing, laughing, dancing, and I cherish every sign that they are alive. The terror that they may some day not be is what wakes me up, screaming, from nightmares. In just a few - so very few - years they will be students, and the sounds of their living will fill other spaces. I will always worry, though.