Bronwyn 0 - Kidneys 2

It's been a long week. I'm so relieved it's Friday. It's really been a festival of suck around here.

The mom of one of my son's friends committed suicide. I'm having trouble making sense of this myself, let alone trying to help Killian make sense of it. In the last five years, three people I know have made this particular choice, and all were parents with young kids.

As horrible as the first two deaths were, this woman's death seems worse. Maybe it's because she was around my age and we both have two boys. Maybe it's because the other two were men and not always around as far as parenting went. It might just be because I can't imagine doing something that would take me away from my kids like that.

This particular mom was very active in the school. She was funny, energetic, loved the kids and they all loved her, too. The funeral was yesterday. Most of my son's eighth grade class attended. I spend quite a bit of time at the school and know most of these kids pretty well. I can't tell you how hard it is to watch this group of 13 and 14 year olds dealing with this kind of grief and confusion. Most of the girls wept openly, but it was the boys that really got to me as they tried to be tough and keep from crying. It literally hurt my chest to watch the way they stood with hunched shoulders and hands shoved in their pockets, occasionally pulling them out to dash at their eyes with closed fists. The way they awkwardly hugged the boy who'd lost his mom was just as painful to watch.

I know it's impossible to protect kids from pain...and it's not even a good idea. God knows it's something that we all have to learn to deal with during the course of our lives, but sometimes I'd really like to shelter them. Hell, sometimes I'd like to shelter me...or the mom who felt like she had no other options.

In other slightly less depressing news, my kidneys...they still hate me. The infection is back. I get to go to the doctor's next week for an ultra sound of the rotten little buggers. yippee. On the plus side, I have an excuse for more of season six of Buffy. However, it seems kinda lame in spite of everything else.