Every teacher dreads the day when one of their students (current or former) passes away. For me... today was that day.

A student I had last year and the year before committed suicide last night. She was a perfect case of "the last person you'd ever expect."

I was greatly shocked and saddened by this news, but the worst was the student reaction. We are a very small community and something of this magnitude affects everyone. I spent first hour comforting crying/balling kids and at one point I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get the sound of their crying out of my head. My classes were eerily quiet throughout the day, but it did seem to get better as the day wore on.