Big Boys Don't Cry

© 2006 copyright Raymond C. Evans

The school trustees had a dilemma. If they were to keep our one room school open, they would have to import some children to attend it. The solution to the problem was to hire a teacher who had children, thus, they could meet the attendance requirements.

Early on it seemed just like any other weekend but this one would turn out very different. This weekend I would lose a friend; sisters would lose their brother, a father and mother, their son. This weekend an automobile accident would change our lives.

The teacher’s son was about ten or eleven, near the same age as I was at the time. It was about the middle of the school year, and he and I had become friends. Friends were hard to come by those days in such a small school. There were only about nine kids attending and they ranged all the way from first grade to the eighth. Most times there might only be about two kids anywhere near the same age who might have the same interests.

The news came about Sunday morning, if I remember correctly; school would be closed for a few days, our teacher had an auto accident. Our school had temporarily lost its teacher, she had permanently lost her son, and I had lost a friend. Friends were indeed hard to come by, at that little school.

In those days there were no counselors to listen to a child’s point of view or someone to console. All the grown-ups were concerned for the mother and father, they well recognized the tragedy, they could relate real well to the sorrows of the grieving family, but how about me? I had lost a friend; did that not count for anything? Did anybody know how hard it was? Did anybody really care?

It was really hard to comprehend at first; could this news be a mistake? My childish mind had a hard time wrapping around such news. Perhaps it was just a dream, a nightmare, I would wake up soon and all would be well. Could this bad news be some sort of joke such as practiced on April first? I would have been happy if it were a joke, even if cruel. Perhaps if I just went to sit by myself behind a stump for awhile, the whole incident might go away. How is an eleven year old child supposed to react when hearing about the death of a friend? Big boys don’t cry, but how would I ever get rid of that lump in my throat? Could this all have been a bad dream? I would hope so, but I guess not, this is not like the games we played where you could pretend things to be any way you want. This was a very hard thing to grasp. This was a very bad day; I had lost a friend, my only friend.

School would start again; it would start with one less child to meet the attendance requirements. I would go back to school, my friend could not.