This little boy, eternally 13

There was this little boy, who was only 13, who decided, for whatever reason, for whatever pain, that enough was enough and he couldn't take whatever it was, anymore.

He killed himself the last day of school before Spring vacation. 13. He would have been 14 in May, but now, he is eternally 13.

Now, there are only 200 kids or so in Drama Girl's 8th grade class, so she knows him but she wasn't a close friend, just an acquaintance. She said Monday, at school, will be really hard. There will be an assembly. There will be counselors. There will be tears. There will be kids who are confused, kids who are devastated and kids who don't know what they should feel because they didn't know him, but for some reason, are still feeling like they did.

Suicide is such a harsh word. Killed himself. Took his own life. Whatever or however you phrase it, I wish there was a less harsh way to convey that there was something in him he couldn't reconcile with. At 13. And the people around him couldn't reach him, couldn't reach through this barrier... whether it was grief, depression, anger... it all reads as a barrier of pain and for some reason that barrier was too much.

And now a little boy is lost.

I can tell you he has a baby face.
I can tell you he looks happy in the picture they chose.
I can tell you he had friends.
I can tell you a bunch about him that is the stuff of typical 13 year old boys.

I can tell you I look at my girl, who's 14, with a baby face, and her 14 year old girlfriends, with their baby faces, and the 14 year old boys she hangs out with, and I can't imagine that any one of them would be lost that way.

The truth is, we cannot imagine that someone so young would be in so much emotional pain that it would drive them to act in such a final way.

And then I look at the picture of that smiling boy, eternally 13, and I mourn for him.