in memory

I want to be eloquent. I want to be poetic. I want to be deep and spiritual and moving. But I don't know how to do it. I can't move on in this blog, go on to the "new normal," post about ceramics projects and observational drawings and crazy batiks until I've acknowledged what I never imagined.

So I sit and cry and just let you know that my student died. A quiet but oh so funny 5th grade boy. He was the son of a high school teacher, the younger brother of a middle school student, the older brother of an elementary student, the son of the PTO president, the classmate of the 5th graders, and the student of the elementary teachers. My student, for three years.

Before moving to China, I attended a two-week training with him, his family, and other new staff members. Three weeks later, on July 25, 2008, we met up in San Francisco and boarded the plane for our journey together to living abroad.

On Friday, March 25, during Parent/Teacher conferences, he was playing near his house and had a tragic accident. The injuries from his fall were unsurvivable. He was taken to the local hospital, then medi-evaced to Hong Kong, but the doctors in Hong Kong pronounced him dead on Tuesday, March 29.



This musically-talented, baseball-loving, quiet comedian will forever be part of my story of teaching ARTabroad.




In lieu of flowers, the family has established a fund to honor his memory and his love for music and the arts. The money will be used to purchase things that touched his life and that he loved, such as major instruments for the band program, special afterschool programs in music and the arts, etc.