Farewell, Trevor

Last week I was half-listening to the news on the radio while trying to drive and simultaneously hold a conversation with my 5yr old. On came a news item about a boy found stabbed in his bed in a suburb on the Cape Flats. I didn't listen too closely, except to note the basics of the story.

Two days later, I got a phone call (during school holidays and on a Sunday!) from a colleague to ask whether I'd heard the news about Trevor, one of the boys in my tutor group. What news, I asked? The news that he had died 3 days previously. I was shocked! As she started to tell me the sketchy details she had, I realised that the brief news item I had heard on the radio had been about this boy.

I immediately ran to the trusty internet to see what other details I could find, because there seemed to be rather a lot of confusion surrounding the event. When I did, I discovered that one of the other girls in my class had messaged me on Facebook, asking whether I had heard and could confirm any details. The details I did manage to find weren't pleasant. No signs of forced entry, yet the house had been turned upside down and the boy's body had been stabbed repeatedly, then left hidden under a duvet and pillow on his bed. He had just turned 16 two weeks prior to his death. Fortunately, his 3yr old sister had been staying with their grandmother, but he had been at home alone. When his mother couldn't get into the house on her return from work, she called the police, who broke in and discovered his body.

Later that morning, as I took my family out for a morning at Kirstenbosch, listening to their happy chatter, I couldn't help but feel shell-shocked. How does the world continue to turn, how do other people's live go on, when tragedies such as this occur? I remember feeling that way for a VERY long time after Zoe died. How could others just go on? Why didn't the entire world stop? I can only imagine the grief that his mother feels right now.

The real tragedy of it all is that Trevor was just starting to get his life back on track after losing his own father 2 years ago. He had gone through a troubled patch, academically at least, but was starting to turn things around. He had such potential, and the world is the poorer because he is no longer in it.

The funeral is this coming weekend. I really don't know how I'm gong to handle Monday when we return to school after the holidays - I'm sure there will be a special assembly. What I'm concerned about though is how to help the tutor class. Of course, not everyone in the class was a good friend of his, or knew him very well, but as a class they've been together since they started at the school.

For all the violence I experienced in UK schools, I've never had to deal with a death of this nature, or one for a child in my class. At times like this I wish I was a trained counsellor, so that I would have some clue about how to manage the situation.

The person I feel most sympathy for though is his mother. She has lost two people she loved in two years, and not just any two people, but her husband and now her son. There are no words. Life sucks sometimes.