Heartsick

Was going to blog about the crazy weekend of sports--all day Saturday basketball, all day Sunday soccer.  Or maybe the upcoming St. Patrick's Day party.  Or whatever else about my small relatively insular life popped into my head.  But then the news came in yesterday and rocked my world.

Kid went missing from my general geographic area last Wednesday night.  Kid stayed missing for days despite all efforts to find him, and there were many.  All over the news in a multi-state area.  Kid left home with no money, no phone: just took off on impulse.  No word at all about what happened to him till we heard yesterday that he'd been found dead very close to home.  Hoped he'd fallen and hit his head or something, but nope.  Gunshot wound to the head.  Self-inflicted.  Apparently triggered by an email from his school about homework, of all things.  Did I mention that the kid was an eighth grader?  Only two years older than Thing One.  Can't even BEGIN to process this.  Going back to my recent theme of poor decision making while young, what kind of skewed perspective or brain chemistry would result in a young man thinking that death was the only option because of 8th grade homework???  And don't even get me started on how the young man in question was able to get his hands on a gun because that would probably make me apoplectic with rage if I knew the details.

Waste.  What a massive, massive waste.