Frozen Moments

I saw the local news last night for the first time in several days. The main story was about further arrests for the murder last week of a young man in the town I used to live and work in. With a sickening lurch I realised I knew the young man in question. Although I had not taught him, I had fond memories of teaching his older sister.

Although all the details are not yet in the public domain, there is suspicion that the murder is drug-related. My heart is aching for his family. When I was teaching there, everyone in the school knew this child, but whatever choices may have been made in his life (and I read his Facebook page tonight so I am under no illusion) no family deserves this. As I go to bed tonight, I am accompanied by memories of a 7 year old with attitude, frozen in time and I realise that this is the fate of primary school teachers; frozen moments. Life for these children moves on in all its splendid, turbulent, gory, glorious detail as they hurtle hopefully into adulthood and yet to us, they remain locked in that time, that 39 week window that we knew and taught them in. RIP.