Young man lost

On Saturday April 26, a senior at Manasquan High School stepped in front of a train in his hometown of Spring Lake. He was an honor student, sports captain, and all-around, well-liked boy. Here's the brief, and the obituary. I hope tomorrow's Coast Star, our local paper, will have some more detailed information. Some students I spoke, who knew him at the school, said they were shocked; they never saw it coming. Maybe others, family perhaps, did. I don't know.
What I do know is that it is unacceptable.
Certainly we do not accept suicide. But it happens, and it's happening more often than we'd like. I said yesterday, while giving a presentation in my Content Literacy class on Into the Wild, that I've come to the realization that during my time as an educator, one of my students will probably commit suicide and others will add to a national drop-out rate that continues to rise. (My professor confirmed that she'd had a student suicide during her teaching career and statistics she calculated said we'd probably all have one.)
It just seems amazing that our society can look at these problems, along with depression and a slew of other mental disorders, and shrug as if to say, "well, I guess that's life."
When are we going to realize that our pursuits are in vain? That we're chasing an unattainable goal and killing ourselves in the process?
Dr. Quinn (not the medicine woman) talks about this a lot, the idea of disenchantment, but it's always alarming to see it in practice. Give someone a hug today. It may be corny, but just do it ... please.