"Head...Shoulders...Knees and...SOCKS!"

Yesterday I got an interesting IM from one of the kids that I used to work with. I first met him in 1995 when he was just starting 9th grade, he has since graduated from college and is working for a big corporation. He's still a good kid, and we still like him and think highly of him. We still run into him on a semi-regular basis. He is what we call a good egg. He IMed to say hi, but also to let me know that the father of two of the other kids in our group (there were only about 15 kids total at the time and 1/2 were pairs of siblings) had passed away unexpectedly last week. His funeral was this afternoon. Now I haven't spoken to this family in quite a while, although the younger one (who is now in college) would IM me periodically, but not regularly.

For some reason his death has really stuck with me. I wasn't particularly close with him, I worked with his wife a lot more, but he was always happy to open his home to us for family dinners and his kids were super involved in all of our programs. The entire family was outgoing, smart, and talented. Everybody loves them. I was so proud when the younger one stayed involved in the program all through high school and even went on to be the chapter's president after I had moved on to work with a new group of kids.

But why has his death stuck with me? Is it because I was close with his children, and I still worry about how they are doing, even though I haven't really spoken to them for quite a while? Is it because I worry about the possibility of the untimely death of Spouse - what if this were to happen to us? What would Child and I do? Is there some way we can prevent this from happening to us?

The other thing that struck me by all this is that even though these are kids who I haven't all kept in touch with on a regular basis, I still hear from them and one will tell me what the others are doing. I also got an email and IM from another girl (she was the leader of the group when they hired me - and herself was only in high school!). She wrote to tell me that she is engaged, and was all excited. She also wanted to make sure I knew what happened to her friend's father. And this made me realize - Wow. I made the difference in the life of another person. That's pretty f*ing cool. These kids still look up to me, and respect me, and come to me with questions, even though I haven't worked directly with them since 1998. I love getting IMs from "my kids" because they all start the same way: "SOCKS!!!!" Kinda cool. It's heartwarming to know that even after all the good times, arguments, and teenage traumas I went through with them, they still look up to me as a mentor. The best part is that all of those who themselves have gone on to work with kids have apologized to me for their behavior when they were in high school, because now they finally understand my side of things, and why I made some of the decisions that I did.

I am going to send the family a card, and let them know that I am thinking about them. Perhaps this will help me with some closure, but I think I will still think about this some more.