This makes me think of something that happened when I was in high school.

In my sophomore year, a well liked soccer player committed suicide. Obviously everyone was up in arms. Assembly for him, t-shirts made, memorial on his locker, the whole nine yards. I didn't know him, but it was understandably a sad time.

Just about a month later, one of my best friends, Zack, was in a horrible car accident on his way home from school. He'd had his license for less than 6 months. He drove home and was turning from the county highway into his driveway, and was struck by a semi pulling a load of lumber to the nearby paper mill.

The semi didn't stop, and Zack's car was pushed into the ditch. November in Wisconsin, it was already getting dark.

It wasn't until hours later, when his parents let his dog out to go potty and she ran down the long driveway and led his parents to his car, that he was found.

He spent a week in the hospital in a coma, never woke up, and finally died.

Zack, myself and our few other friends were not popular. In our small town high school, we were the weird kids. The gay kids, the kids with bad home lives. The kids with no money. We were beat up, bullied and picked on and treated terribly by our peers while the faculty stood by and insisted "they would talk to those bullies!"

So after Zack died, there was no announcement at school at any point. No assembly. Three of us put a memorial on his locker. Bullies tore it off.

Three days after his death, during 2nd hr announcements, they called Zack down to the office. Even though they knew that his funeral was that day.

No one cared about Zack, no one cared about his friends who were suffering from his loss.

I just wanted to share this, it's apalling to me still, all these years later.

We miss you Zack.

Edit: I know it isn't considered "classy" to make the post-gold edits, but seriously: thank you. I think I'll send Zack's mother a message on Facebook tonight, to see how her family has been doing, and to let her know that I still think of Zack every day.