All the tears

It has been almost a week since Sammy died.
It didn't really make any sense to me at the time. I remember waking up wednesday morning, checking my Instagram (a part of my daily morning ritual), seeing the posts about some boy who got hit by a van- "who was he?" "does anyone know who he is?" "how is he doing?"...and then... "The boy is Samuel Cohen-Eckstein, and he did not survive."
Wait, what? Could you repeat that?
Samuel Cohen-Eckstein. You know, that really nice kid that goes to your school? The one that sits next to you in gym?
Oh, that one.
Yeah. He's dead.
My hands were shaking as I processed this information. This awful, awful news.
I remember thinking to myself, nah, this can't be real. No. I won't let it be true. I remember texting one of my closest friends about this. She texted back "Oh my god. Oh my god. I hope this isn't true." I remember my dad asking me what was wrong, and I said "Nothing. Just trying to decide what sweater to wear," even though my expression obviously showed otherwise. I remember receiving a text saying that yearbook that morning was canceled. But I dismissed this information having anything to do with Sammy's death. I packed, got ready for school, and headed out. And then I arrived. There was something in the air, something not quite right. Like something was there. But also missing.

I found my friends huddled in a small group. And when they saw me, they hugged me. They said sorry, and all I said was "How did you know?" Because I knew. The realization hadn't exactly come to me fully, but it was there, lingering among the near edge of my consciousness. They said they found out from my friend, the one I texted. They said "And I was in such a good mood this morning, too!" I looked around at the other groups of closely huddled friends- hugging, tear-stained faces, wailing, oh my god, empty faces, nothingness expressions, the grey sky, it was chilly, it was silent, nothing was right, how did this happen, nothing was right, nothing at all. The news, the news, oh the news, it flooded me like a crashing tsunami.
I said "Sammy's dead." They said yes, he is.
"How? How did he die? How could this happen, what, why, WHY, WHY!?" Soon enough I found out why he died- he had run into the street to get his soccer ball, but he tripped and fell and was struck by a van. I wanted to scream at him. HE WENT INTO THE STUPID STREET TO GET HIS STUPID SOCCER BALL AND THEN A STUPID DRIVER JUST HAD TO RUN HIM OVER WITH HIS STUPID VAN.
It was the first time I really wanted to curse, but I knew that wasn't right, so I didn't.
They told me it was okay to cry. But I told them I didn't need to. And when I said it, tears sprang into my eyes. And I decided to cry.
I wailed. I moaned, "no, how could this be, why did it have to be him, out of all people, death chose him, he died, he's dead, he died, Sammy died, he's gone, forever, no, no, no." I repeated everything at least twenty times that day. But even repeating the information didn't make it any more real. I mean, I knew that it was real, but I also didn't know. I didn't know how real it was. Or how much more real it was about to get. Another friend of mine came to me and hugged me and said that her brother was going home because him and Sammy were really great friends and so he was going home and I hugged so many more teary-eyed faces and I was just so upset.

My friends and I walked around outside of school in our tight-knit group for a little while, me sobbing my eyes out and my friends walking around me with their arms on my shoulders trying to comfort me. Some of their faces were wet with tears, too. Some of the seventh and sixth graders we passed looked so happy. So normal. They didn't know. And it made me angry. But some seventh and sixth graders that I saw were crying, and I was still angry. Angry at them because they didn't even know him, why should they be crying, it doesn't affect them at all. I was so angry. It was terrible.
I also remember a teacher walking around outside, asking a few pretty miserable looking students if they needed to come inside to talk to a counselor or something. She even asked me. I guess I looked pretty miserable. But I still said that I was okay, and so she left me and my friends and our tears.

When I went inside, I hugged even more people, because they knew, too. And when I hugged them my tears were already almost dry and I told them that it was okay. And I went to my locker because everyone else was and I got my stuff ready and I was halfway done packing up when the tears came rumbling back, another storm. I sat there at my locker feeling so, so empty and I cried some more. And then I went to sit down at my table and I cried even more. I covered my mouth with my wet tear-soaked sleeves to make sure I didn't cry too loud. My friend sitting beside me hugged me again. And some more people came and hugged me. And there was a pile of tissues at my table with all of our tears. I don't think we even did the pledge. The announcements didn't come on. Or at least I don't remember. Then our teacher spoke and asked the class mayors to tell us all what happened, and one of them spoke up and said that
"Sammy died yesterday when he ran out into the street to get his soccer ball but tripped and fell and ended up getting run over by a van." And people argued, "it wasn't a van, it was a blah blah blah whatever whatever!" I wanted to scream at them all, "WHO EVEN CARES HOW HE DIED HE'S DEAD IT DOESN'T MATTER ANYMORE NOTHING MATTERS!" But instead I just cried. It was the kind of cry where you just couldn't seem to catch your breath.

The classroom became pretty silent. The only sound you could hear was sadness. Sobbing and tears and "why's" and devastation. Sadness. Sadness was, in fact, the only thing you could hear in the entire school. It was so quiet, yet so loud.
The rest of the day went by. We kind of stumbled into each classroom and sat and listened to our teachers tell us that if we needed anything that they were there to help. The announcements came on to remind the school that if you wanted to talk to counselors, you could head on down to the auditorium. And so about a third of our class left. But I stayed.
We didn't do much. We just cried and hugged and made paper cranes and I said "Oh my god," and "It's okay" an awful lot. We made Sammy a card, too. It said "Out of all the people, it had to be him." I also wrote on it "He spent his whole life worrying about and working towards the future, when there was no future for him to worry about." We hung it up in the hallway along with everyone else's posters and condolences. I heard that people were writing messages to him in the bathroom stalls. There was also this picture of him playing a trumpet in the hallway along with all the other band pictures, and surrounding his picture were a handful of "R.I.P. Sammy" notes. Plenty of colored in hearts, too. I cried when I saw it. It was so beautiful how much 51 loved him. How much 51 loves him.

The next day, on Thursday, we all wore black. The entire school. We got half-back into our normal routines. People started asking me if I was okay a lot, and I started  saying "I'm okay" instead of "It's okay."Even though I wasn't fully okay. No one was. But I think that's what you're supposed to say to make yourself feel a little better. I wouldn't really know. I've never encountered a death before then.
At lunch, me and a few of my friends and about half of the eight graders walked down to the synagogue for his funeral. It was the first time I'd been to a funeral, and also a synagogue. It was kind of odd.
There were so many people there. And so much black clothing. I saw a few of his friends wearing black suits and soccer cleats; I thought that was really sweet.
The funeral was so emotional and touching. Again, there was a whole lot of crying involved. My sleeves were sopping wet with tears. But my most favorite speech was Sammy's grandmother's. She said something along the lines of her not feeling bad for Sammy's parents and everyone who knew him, but instead the world, for they did not ever get to meet him. I also really liked when his mom told us about how he never really spoke full words or sentences when he was little, and his sister was the only one who really understood him- and then when they went to the zoo and he watched an elephant eat a full apple he told his mom "Mommy, the elephant ate the whole apple!" and those were his first real words/sentence. Everyone laughed at that part. It was nice to listen to happiness for a change. Afterward, my friends and I went up to his memorial, where he died. It was decorated with dozens of lovely bouquets of flowers and posters and letters to him. These two girls whom we knew from school were hanging teddy bears on each and every lamp post. We hung up our own card, a watercolor one that said "'Mommy, the elephant ate the whole apple!'" and a bouquet of flowers. We also took the role of explaining to passer-byers about what happened. They mostly said stuff like "That's terrible," and "I'm so sorry." But we already knew how sorry everyone felt.
At home, his death was all over Instagram and the news. There were hundreds of posts about him, and even an account in remembrance of him. I was so happy to see how much he was missed and loved, but most of all I was happy to see all of the happy, smiley pictures there were of him. I hoped that he was smiling then, and I hope that he is smiling now, because smiling was that one thing he knew how to do better than all of us.

Rest in peace, Sammy. You will always and forever be in our hearts.
10/8/13