When I was teaching high school, I was asked to help chaperone a junior high dance. All went well. When the kids were well-supervised in the process of parent-pickup, I went home. But I missed all the drama. (Thank God!)
Apparently, there was one student left whose mother hadn't shown up and wasn't responding to calls from him. And then the word came down that his mother and younger sister had been killed in a vehicle accident fairly close to the school, and his stepfather-to-be seriously injured, on their way to pick him up from the dance.
Oh, my heart! I simply couldn't imagine the agony that young man and his younger brother went through. I didn't know them at the time but had them both in class later. Their mother's sister and husband gave up everything in (I think) Texas to come and finish raising the boys in order to relieve the grandparents of their sad responsibility. I am friends with this young man on FB. His brother is in prison for drug reasons. (?) His life has been a struggle, but he has skills in HVAC. He has managed, and I'm proud of him.
PS: The future step-dad in his life--also one of my former students--committed suicide years after he recovered from the accident. Something about some statutory sex crime that he was facing. Don't have details and don't care. It was just another tragedy for my students to deal with. Ugh.
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