R.I.P.

It has been a tough week for me.

A student of mine committed suicide this Wednesday.

The principal called an urgent meeting in the middle of the lesson and announced the news.

My heart stopped for a moment.

He was a charming, helpful boy and was among the last ones I could think of to end his life in this way.

Shock strafed me hard and deprived me of speech. For an instant, coldness ran through my body. I found myself kept trembling throughout the meeting and tears burning in my eyes. I tried to take slow, deep breath to calm myself down but it couldn't make me feel any better. My mind whirled round and round searching for possible reasons, but no... it couldn't be true... I still can't believe this. He didn't leave any notes or so. The whole thing remained a mystery.

An image thrashed in my mind—he was standing on the brink of a building overlooking the town, wind riffling his hair. Icy night air ripped at his lung and froze him to the bone. He looked confused and stranded. Then he made a decision, an irreversible one.

I couldn't shrug the image off my mind. And when I thought of that, I could feel a mix of fear and chill from the very depth of my heart.

I couldn't recognize such an emotion and physical reaction. That's completely novice to me. It all happened at a sudden.

However, I had no time to take in the grief. I had a more important job to do.

I listened carefully to the principal about what to do next. Still trembling in shock, I then shuffled back to the classroom with the bad news.

I stopped at the door of my classroom and kept taking deep breath. Each breath I took echoed loud and slow. I told myself repetitiously not to lose control over my emotion and be strong.

My students were laughing and joking but the moment I stepped into the classroom, silence fell over. I must have looked terrible.

I did not say anything. I didn't even look at them for I feared I would burst into tears. Until the principal announced the news through the PA system.

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They were calmer than I thought. Some of them even worked on sakudo on newspaper after the announcement as if it was the death of an Afghan on the other side of the world. Yes, the boy was in 7B (not in 7A which is my class). But they have been studying in the same school for 7 years and some of them worked very closely together in Form Six. Couldn't they feel some kind of connection between them?

Was it defense mechanism? Sad but true, I don't think so.

They laughed their way home after school. And on the other day, the first 2 lessons were held by the class teachers so as to help the students ease through the grief. I shared my view with them and asked them to write down their feeling. Yes, it's not compulsory but some of them were too busy doing their revision for tests to give a fig for the passage I gave them or to write anything.

That was not the case when Mr. Leung, a teacher of this school, died.

I did feel a bit angry of their apathy even though my rational self told me different people have different reactions to death, in particular, death of different ones. That's rather personal and I couldn't expect everybody cried over the deceased ones—let alone that's not what I want.

But that kind of apathy scared me. It was eating us bit by bit.

We are not Jesus Christ and I know that it's quite impossible to love every single one on Planet Earth even though they are not our enemies.

But I have never thought that our love or mercy is so limited that it only applies to those whom we know really well and for a long time.

Death of care is even more scaring than death of a person we know.

I might have misunderstood the whole thing. But all of a sudden, things that happened didn’t make sense to me.

I was confused.

Anyway, I feel much better now. That's why I can reorganize my own feeling and write something that long-winded.

If you have finished the whole entry, I really thank you so much for your patience. I am really touched.