Student death

Last week one of my students died. I'd never lost a student before. Demia Marie Davis was apparently a sufferer of epilepsy, and sometime between November 13 and 14, she had a seizure and died. Her roommate discovered her on Monday, Nov. 14, about noon. I found out about the death in segments. On Monday, a notice went out that a student had died. As always, I hoped it was not one of mine. About ten minutes before class on Tuesday, I discovered it was Demia. She had had a seizure and had died, only to be discovered by her roommate who returned to the dorm room on Monday, noonish.

It made for a horrible sad class on Tuesday, and I won't ever get over the trauma. I've never lost a student before, and I hope it never happens again.

Demia was a beautiful young (18-year-old) black girl. She was quiet, sweet, and hard-working. Many of my students were in 2 and 3 classes with her. It was hard to work through the day on Tuesday, and it did not get much better.

Fortunately for me and for others, Thanksgiving intervened and gave us time to gather our wits. I am facing returning to class once again with the spectre of Demia's empty chair.

Thanksgiving was quiet. My Esteemed Spouse and I ate prepackaged foods (frozen turkey and gravy, packaged stuffing mix), and I did expend the energy to make green-bean casserole and broccoli-cheese-rice casserole. We finished up most of it today. There's one piece of pumpkin pie left and most of a pecan pie. I can't eat much of the pecan pie. It's entirely too sweet. After all, it's made using Karo syrup.

My younger son spent a day or so with his brother, my older son. They seemed to have had a good time. We're hoping to see both of them at Christmas. Fingers crossed.

Classes begin again tomorrow for the next two or three weeks. Sigh. I am tired and wishing I had more time between semesters.