Comment

Comment by myra delgado on November 29, 2010 at 7:03pm

AM SO SORRY 4 UR LOSS

Comment by Sherilyn on October 16, 2010 at 9:02pm

With all the news about bullying at schools it just feeds my lost soul all the more. I lost my daughter, Kelly, at the age of 17 yrs. to several things, and one was the constant bullying she suffered at the very school that should have been protecting her all the more. Kelly at the age of 14 was a victim of a sexual abuse encounter with her coach/teacher...this person was an extremely popular person in our community as well as in our schools and our community recreation programs. My daughter met her, as she was the coach on her softball team in 2002. Kelly was full of life, and loved being a kid, being alive, and just being "Kelly". Then it took a sorbid turn as softball season ended and school began. Her coach, then became a student teacher in her english class. Kelly was never again the child that started that softball season that year. She played softball to keep herself busy, as she hated summers because it meant 3 long months without being in school. As she began her 9th grade it was evident that something was happening, and that something was not good. After a few attempts at suicide, we knew something had to be done. We took our suspicions to the local police dept. after finding a love letter that the teacher had written to Kelly. Through along series of events, the teacher was charged, and a trial followed about a year later. The teacher was found guilty and sentenced to 45 yr. in prison. Kelly was never the same. But, she wanted to stop this teacher/coach from abusing and mentally torturing another student. As Kelly knew it would not stop with just her. Because she testified against this teacher, Kelly was teased by others, bullied unmercifully, not only by students but by adult friends of the teacher, and by the teacher's family members. One in particular. We moved Kelly away, hoping she could finish her schooling and go onto college. But she wanted so much to come home. She cried and said, "Everyone says, I didn't do anything wrong! then why am I having to leave my bedroom and family & friends then?!" So, her dad and I let her come home. She finished her 11th yr. and started her Senior year. She often came home crying, and would get up the next day and venture off to school again. Her dad and I didn't know that she was being threatened on My Space, at shcool, at work, and out and about in the community. Kelly and her friends hid the fact from us, as Kelly was afraid we would send her to finish school with other relatives once more. I have had to live with this.....on November 11, 2005 Kelly no longer wished to hide the fact any longer of what she was having to endure. What angers me, is the school did know about it. This we found out later. Kelly went into her bedroom that she loved so much, and she hung herself with her puppy's leash. The puppy died just days earlier. He had wondered into another yard, and the 2 dogs that lived there was protecting their territory, and killed him. Kelly said, "See, even my puppy was bullied to death." Why wasn't I listening to her? She wrote in a poem that I found by her bedside later. One of the versus's said: "I put on a happy face for all the world to see, but inside it's not the real me." "Why is this battle so hard to face, why isn't my life anymore a happy place?" Kelly was a silent victim of school bullying because she had the guts to testify in an open court with a court room full of strangers, and face her perputrator, her friends, and her family. Yet, she is silent. Please remember Kelly, she died not a hero, for what she did in choosing suicide was wrong, but what she did in stopping a perputrator from abusing even more kids was right, and heroic. RIP Kelly I love you so much....it will soon be 5 years without your face smiling in the morning's before school and yet facing what you knew you had to. I wish so much I would have known just what was happening. Lets do what we can to help STOP school bullying........