This won't be entirely coherent, as my thoughts are rather jumbled.

A bit of backstory...

As some of you may know, I used to work for a summer camp for about a decade or so, really. I'd started when I was fourteen and, except for a few summers, worked there every summer until I was twenty-five. Even when I wasn't working the entire summer I'd visit when I could.

So tonight I learned that one of our staff members has just died of cancer. Alex was only eighteen. I first met him...gosh, I can't even remember how young he was, but he was in my classes before he became a staff member,so he had to be about eleven.

Yes, it's cliche and it's trite and it's a fucking shame for anyone to die, but he was just a kid. He was one of my kids. My staffers and my kids are not supposed to die.

To be honest, I hadn't seen him in a few years, but that doesn't change a thing.

Right at eighteen, right when life begins to pick up and go.

One of the joys I had was watching these kids grow up and the sheer wonder of seeing them enter college and develop into these amazing people.

We will never see the person Alex was growing to be.

His poor family, I cannot fathom what they're going through.

How do you deal with the loss of a child? When the elderly die, there's always that comforting phrase, "Well, they lived a good life."

Alex barely got the chance.