My grandparents drove to Longview today in order to take me out to eat. I had the pleasure of eating a twelve ounce steak and a great baked potato.
As always when my grandparents come up here, I was told all about things that have been happening at home. Most of it was the same old crap that I'm sure every family encounters. Gossip, speculations, negative opinions, and all that other good stuff. However, I'm not writing right now because of any of that boring information.
The reason I am writing is because they told me that my high school is raising money for a memorial to all of the kids who were killed in some way or another in the last few years. From what they said the memorial will be for the eight kids who died in the past four or five years. While I am sure that number is normal for a large number of schools, it isn't for mine. The town has 525 people in it. There are approximately 120-130 students that make up the junior high-high school buildings. When one of those students is taken away, the entire school is affected. Even the people who didn't know the kid personally would know enough about him/her to be affected by his/her death.
This re-realization (I had known how many kids have died, I've just never really thought about it) caused me to think of the number of LeTourneau students that have died since I started here. So far there has been a memorial service chapel at the beginning of every semester. I have known only one of the students who has passed away since I've been here, but I know people who knew almost all of them.
I guess the point of this whole thing is to ask if these statistics are normal. They seem wrong to me. This few people should not be experiencing this much death. I know that I feel like I've dealt with enough death in my life to last for a while. My grandfather, the only great-grandmother that I knew, my sister, and a cousin have all died in a span of five years. I have also had three people I was friends with and two other people I knew die within the same time frame. I'm tired of dealing with death.
Posted by Randy at October 8, 2003 08:17 PM