Nine years ago I taught what I thought would be my last year, only my second year. I taught some cool kids that I remember but only vaguely. I focused on surviving, not building relationships with the kids. Thus, when two years later a plane crash in Alaska claimed the life of one of my former students along with his entire family, I felt shocked but ultimately moved on quickly.

Last Tuesday, September 1st, I once again heard that a student I taught two years previously, barely 14 months previously actually, had died, this time by his own hand. Even as I wrote that sentence, I still cannot wrap my mind around it.

The news hit me like a sucker punch. I found out from a former coworker, someone who still works at that school. She had called while I lesson planned in my ELA classroom with my student teacher. I’m glad that we made the necessary changes before I called her back because afterwards, I could not stop thinking about this student, cycling through so many different emotions. I needed to tell someone, someone that knew him, before I could go out and put myself through the motions of carline. As I walked out towards the back carline, I passed the one other person in the building that knew this student and delivered the news. We commiserated in shock for only a moment before continuing on with the requirements of the day; the world did not stop.

I first met this kid when he joined our inaugural Model UN club. Another close teaching friend recommended him and a few other superstar sixth graders. From that first meeting I watched as he carried himself with suave assurance and a devastating smile. As someone else pointed out recently, he had “the stuff.”

The next year he became my student. That gifted and talented class pushed me to my limit so many times, this kid included. I spent so much time reflecting on my pedagogy and brainstorming how I could reach him and become a better teacher, for him. The moment I learned of his death, I remembered an evening some time that year where I agonized over how to help him, texting that above-mentioned friend and taking some reassurance from her reminder that this agonizing via text demonstrated that I cared.

Part of me feels like I did not do enough. I don’t mean to say that something I did could have prevented his suicide; I had not seen him for 14 months. Rather, a part of me knows that I could have been a better teacher for him. Even while saying that, I know that the myriad hours spent reflecting, analyzing, planning and implementing made me a better teacher. I guess this part of me wishes that the teacher that emerged from all of that could have taught him.

After hearing news like this, everyone’s mind rushes to the question of why. Mine certainly did. Why would a newly minted ninth grader with incredible intellect, stunning athletic ability and a gorgeous smile take his own life just a month before his 15th birthday?

We will never know for sure. Only hypotheses will survive. I know that he did not have the safety net of school and all the services it provided; that ended abruptly in mid-March. I learned last week that he started high school at a school where few others from his middle school attended. He knew no one there so he entered into this unknown environment without support, this unknown environment where few others looked like him and the rest likely carried bias, unconscious or explicit (through particular choices in emblems on their attire.) I don’t know how long he struggled or what he struggled with. Likely no one knows because mental health struggles still carry such high societal stigma.

This incredible soul took his own life on the first day of Suicide Awareness Month. News of this would likely have passed by with nothing more than a mental glance at the topic. It took suicide touching me personally to become aware. We need to change that. People should not have to die just because their pain appears distant from my own, from our own.

Today, at 11 this morning, his family and close friends will gather for a graveside service. I wish I could have attended although my heart will be there in spirit. The grieving process does not end; it just changes.