Proud Mom

For those parents out there that have teenagers - for as much as you want them to talk to you, and tell you everything - there is somewhere deep down inside, that maybe you really don't want to know, just a smidge of you thinks that, at some point. That some how being oblivious is almost comforting?? Come on... admit it!

Well, there is nothing scarier than your 16 year old son saying the following words, "Mom...Dad...can I talk to you?" with all seriousness in his voice.

But, before anyone gets worried, like we did - there is NOTHING to worry about. Alex is just fine and this had nothing to do with him directly. Just want to get those fears out of your head now so that you aren't skipping to the end of my writing to find out. :)

Me, on the other hand... my heart sank into my stomach and all I could do was repeat in my head, "Whatever it is we'll figure it out. We'll get through it. Don't get angry."

He tells us that his girlfriend has been receiving some text messages from a 15 or 16 year old boy (who is NOT a part of our school ) saying that he had nothing to live for if he couldn't have her and that he was going to kill himself - and then sent an actual image on her phone with his hand holding shotgun bullets. *sigh*

This was last Sunday evening. Shannon and I stood there thinking while Alex continues, "This boy needs help and I want to help him." He also says he's worried for his girlfriends safety, that if the boy is willing to hurt himself who's to say he won't hurt her. Even though he's made no mention of actually hurting her.

This is serious. Not what I expected and not something that either of us are capable of dealing with ourselves. Then a light bulb comes on... we hired a new admissions director at our school, Mary, and I remember on her resume that she did a lot of volunteer work with suicide hot lines!

So we decide to call Mary and see if we can meet with her Monday morning before school starts to figure out what we can do to help this young man. I'm not going to use the boys real name, as it is not important to the story, but I'll call him T.J. so that I don't confuse the "he's and him's" in my writing.

I made it clear to Alex that Mary has a lot of experience in this and that she'll help us figure this out and we will do our best to help T.J. So he was able to relax a little and go about his evening business.

On Monday Alex and I met with Mary in her office and Alex told her what he knew and all his concerns. Mary said the first thing we needed to do was see if we could get his last name. So Alex was going to ask his girlfriend later that morning at school to see if she knew and I was going to go up to the high school at lunch to get it and see if I could find him online.

So at lunch time I went up and Alex got T.J.'s last name and which local public high school he went too. Luckily it wasn't a common name like Smith or Jones - so I got hopeful. I went back down to my office and start googling him.

He popped up as a student at the high school I was told so I decided to do a white pages look up of the last name in the town Chapel Hill to see how many adults I could find. Luckily I only found one set! But there was still no way to be sure that these were T.J.'s parents. So I googled the dad's name, but didn't get any good hits. Then I tried mom and the 2nd hit down was an obituary. I went to it and read all the living relatives - the mom and dad were listed and then, T.J. was listed as a grandchild. Score! I was 100% sure that these were T.J.'s parents.

So I wrote down their names and phone number and I also wrote down the main phone number to the high school not knowing what Mary would want to do. Mary returned from a tour and saw my notes and phone numbers. I quickly went through the process of why I was sure these were T.J.'s parents and then she closed her door to make some phone calls.

Some time later she had me come into her office and said that she first tried the school, but had to leave a message and that just didn't sit well with her since T.J. took an actual photo of him holding onto bullets that he was more serious than if they had just been thoughts. So Mary decided to call the home phone number I found and a man answered. She asked for the mom but she wasn't there so Mary asked if he was "Tom" (the father tho not his real name). He confirmed that he was so and that he had a son T.J. So Mary told him, who she was and what a student from our school had come to her with this morning.

Before I tell you the dad's response can I just say that there could have been so many possible reactions here. He could have been angry, called her a liar, say it was a hoax, deny it...anything. But, there is hope for humanity... the dad's reaction was, "My wife and I have been having this sinking feeling that something was wrong with T.J. He hasn't been acting normal at all these last few months."

WHEW!

So the dad took Mary's information seriously. He asked many questions which Mary answered as best she could. The dad thanked Mary for being willing to make that phone call and also thanked the two concerned students for being willing to speak up, even though they didn't really know T.J. very well, and look for help.

The dad called Mary back about an hour later and told her that he spoke with his wife and that they had removed all the guns they had in the house, and bullets. They have found a counselor for their son to start seeing and that they were seriously considering stopping internet service in their house (which they had just started up a few months ago and thought it might be having some affect on him).

I told Alex all of this and said that the chances of T.J. living were very high because of him and the fact that his parents accepted the information and are being incredibly pro-active (kudos to the parents)!!!!

The dad called back to Mary again the next morning and said that they confiscated his phone, found all the text messages he had sent and the photo - which were live shotgun shells he was holding and that they were going to make sure that the counselor had this information so they know how serious he was. And he once again thanked Mary and our students for having a community that cares - even as extended as it is.

Kudos Alex!!!! This is one very proud mom here!