My daughter woke me last night after I had dozed off to tell me a girl at her school that she was aquainted with had been hit by a car and was in a coma. When I woke early this morning, the Daughter, who has been sleeping in til noon this summer, was already on My Space and told me that Zoey had passed away. All the kids from the Middle School are offering tributes to this lovely young girl through My Space and expressing their shock and sadness. It's quite touching

Things like this affect kids in a weird way. Even if they didn't know the person well or didn't run with them, it's pretty tough the first time one of their peers dies. I remember when I was in school, about 1982, Franklin High School lost about 6 or 7 kids to car wrecks and things and the other times it happened the rest of my school career being quite shaken about this reality of life. One such kid was a Bo Speake, who was a little older than me and was part of the Party Crowd. My sister had seen him the night he was killed in a car wreck I didn't know him well, but, he was a nice guy that everybody liked. I can remember standing over his casket and it all being so unreal that this same guy I sat next to in Health class at Brentwood High School was gone.

Even now, as an adult, when things like that happen, you don't really get used to it. It's part of life and my teens are learning one of the harsh realities. It's necessary, but, still, something in me is sad that they are old enough to be faced with it.