Dear Juneau class of 2017,<\/p>\n
My heart cries for you, for the pain you are feeling today, for the shock that has set in, and the anger and the grief that will come.<\/p>\n
Lean on each other during this time. Let all your little common area and hallway groups mold together and reach out to your classmates. You all need each other and this will be easier to get through together. <\/p>\n
Boys, don\u2019t be afraid to cry. There is nothing more powerful than allowing yourself to feel the pain, it doesn\u2019t make you less of a man, it makes you a real person who cares about their friend. Let the girls come to you in grief, but don\u2019t take advantage of how vulnerable they are. <\/p>\n
Girls, this isn\u2019t a time to fight over who he liked more, or any of that crap. Be there for each other, support each other. Tell your male friends that you are there for them, that it\u2019s okay to cry.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t be afraid to reach out to his parents, they may need some time, but there will be a time they will want you around, they will want to hear your stories and they will find comfort knowing how very loved their son was, and what a good friend he was. <\/p>\n
Your teachers are there for you, and they are grieving too. It\u2019s okay to tell your teacher that you\u2019re struggling in grief and need some more help or time or motivation, but don\u2019t be idle. You\u2019re life won\u2019t stop, but for a time it will feel like it. You may feel guilt for carrying on. Please don\u2019t. You have to keep going, you have dreams to catch and dragons to slay, and they won\u2019t wait. <\/p>\n
Understand your parents are going to be extra lovey, and extra worried. Don\u2019t fight it, they need this, and even if it doesn\u2019t feel like it, you do too. <\/p>\n
Most of all, remember the way you grieve is your own and it\u2019s okay to grieve that way, as long as you keep healthy habits. <\/p>\n
I will be praying for all of you, as well as the whole community of Juneau. <\/p>\n
Ami Demmert<\/strong><\/p>\n JDHS class of 2008 (and someone who lost too many classmates)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Juneau class of 2017, My heart cries for you, for the pain you are feeling today, for the shock that has set in, and the anger and the grief that will come. Lean on each other during this time. Let all your little common area and hallway groups mold together and reach out to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":14,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-25138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25138\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25138"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=25138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}