What a day

Sometimes you get to the end of the day and you just think "I NEVER want to have to do that again."

About a month ago, the older sister of one of the girls in my class was at a party when she pulled a pan of boiling chip oil onto her. She was in ICU for a month, but we heard today that she died last night. Her sister obviously wasn't in school today but a lot of children who knew her were and were very upset. It's been so weird at school because of it - no one really knows what to say/do as is often true when someone dies. I've never had to deal with death in the classroom before and it was quite hard.

But as is so often the case, children are so innocent and sweet and just want to do all they can to make it better. One of the boys in my class who has caused me the most grief this term who also has quite a hard home life suggested we made a paper bunch of flowers for her, which we did this afternoon, then I got them to suggest what we could say on a card. These were their suggestions

"Get happy soon"
"Are you Ok? We hope you're Ok"
"We love you lots"
"Don't worry"
"You're nice"

They were so worried and so eager to try and make the girl in my class feel better about it that they worked for ages on these flowers (which look so cute).

It also then raised the question with one of the teachers - how can you believe in 'someone up there' when something like this happens? I hate that question and feel I did a pants job at answering it. It's such a hard one to answer when everyone's emotions are so raw.