When Teenagers Die, Nothing Makes Sense
2023 feels like 1996
I was up past midnight last Friday. I stood at the back door looking out the glass at the moon. It was full, thin clouds barely masking its glow.
That afternoon, 3 high school students from my hometown were killed in a single-vehicle car wreck. Two of the three were brothers. Two of the three were seniors.
The principal postponed the Friday night football game because of a “terrible tragedy.” I texted with friends that evening trying to learn more about who was killed and the circumstances surrounding the crash. We all noted how odd it felt, people our age that were our high school classmates now having high school age children of their own.
The names were unfamiliar. But it didn’t change the sadness I felt for a mom or dad who would never see their son again. Each morning I wake our daughters, gently kissing their heads as I tell them good morning and that it’s time to wake up. I cannot fathom a world where those sweet moments are ripped away from me. I cannot comprehend getting that call that my child has been killed.
Our daughters will begin driving in the coming years. And it may be the thing that terrifies me most. And I know it’s not that they’re incapable of learning all it takes to operate a vehicle. It’s the loss of control. It’s not being able to protect them every hour of the day.
Terrible Tragedy, 1996
I’ve thought a lot about high school this year. I think that’s likely because I’ve been in the thick of writing a young adult novel centered around high school students. My own high school experience feels like a century ago. And while certainly times have changed (in 1999, if you had a pager you were considered high tech), the feelings, the emotions of teens don’t.
I imagine the pain students at Chesnee High felt heading back to class this past Monday is a lot like we felt in 1996 when two classmates were killed in a crash. I was a sophomore when Marvin Foster and Labreeska Upton died. Marvin was in my gym class at the time. The word surreal gets overused, by what other descriptor fits the day after a teenager suddenly dies and you look around, wondering where they are? Did Marvin sleep in? Is he skipping school? It’s quiet here without him constantly joking.
I’ve written about death before, and how fortunate I’ve been to experience little of it in my lifetime. The favorite thing I’ve ever written that’s now now longer in existence was a blog about that time in 1996. Chesnee High football was dominating. The team looked like future state champs. But there, smack in the middle of the playoffs, two students died unexpectedly.
The next Friday, the team lost on a late field goal. It will always be impossible to calculate just how much Marvin and Labreeska’s deaths impacted the players. When you’ve worked for months to achieve something so significant only for the cruel reality of life to overtake it, overcoming doesn’t feel like an option anymore. Just survival.
It seems like all these decades later, we’re still doing just that: surviving.
Novel Writing Update
I’m at the stage of book writing where I’ve finished editing my first draft and am researching agents to query. It’s exciting, but terrifying. Because imposter syndrome takes up full residence in my head, I constantly doubt the words I’ve written. There are plenty of tweaks still to make, but I really think the story is good.
I never set out to write a YA novel. But that’s what it’s become. A story of hope, adventure, romance, and bravery. I’ve spent countless hours this year working on it. But honestly? It doesn’t feel like it. I think that’s how projects are when you love doing them. You don’t even realize how much time you’ve put into it, because that time has been fun.
I guess this is what chasing your dreams is supposed to feel like. I guess this is what writing something you think is good feels like. Fingers crossed I find an agent that feels the same way.
Thank you for sharing this.