Grief at the Periphery

FEBRUARY 2023
The story of the headteacher, found dead with her young daughter and husband at Epsom College on Sunday morning, has horrified and unsettled us all. For their extended family, 5th February will forever be a grim anniversary conjuring ultimately unknowable but unspeakably disturbing scenes of revulsion. Public sympathy is best given by affording privacy. The family will now be overtaken by the heartache of organising a funeral, the necessary invasion of police due process and lasting grief. 

The story could be one from a jaunty ITV detective series, and this is partly why it is so horrendous. Circumstances not dissimilar from the pervasive dramatic genre befall a family at the centre of a school community. Those who speculate about the whys and wherefores are are guilty of failing to distinguish between entertainment and actuality, and are committing a gross act of bad taste. 

This does not mean, of course, that the events should not be spoken about. Shrouding the worst of human experience in a cloak of respectful silence is as much a pretence as those who believe their  foresight in front of Poirot is more than it is. The laboratory of the mind should be exposed to small quantities darkness. The exposure is an inoculation against suffering - it does not prevent suffering or the effects of suffering, but a richer emotional memory is more resilient and more able to recover.

Those most directly connected to the headteacher, her family and their closest friends, face a dreadful tragedy that is mercifully rare. But in addition to this there is the peripheral tragedy faced by all those in the community at Epsom College that is all too common. The introspection typical of teenagers gives bereavement a cruel dimension. The question ‘How to grieve?’ is fraught. Watching others who are visibly shaken can give rise to questions about our own insensitivity. Others who are able to find a quiet moment to commemorate and remember, but then beaver away in preparation for mock exams may well feel guilt in doing do. And above the tragedy of the loss of life, there also lurks the fear of how it came about.  ‘Is there something wrong with me?’ is a ubiquitous reflection of those more able to move on, or to compartmentalise, or those whose lingering on the horror of it all has an end-date.

When I was at school my younger brother felt acutely the tragic death of a peer. Unkindly, I confess now, I thought his tears, letters to the family and need to talk about the circumstances were disproportionate. He was not close to the girl, I thought. He is making this about him.

I was wrong and feel shamefaced about my feelings then. But teenagers have a licence to be wrong in these matters and it is what makes it so hard for a school to guide everyone. No pattern of grief is the right one. No response is ‘correct’. For all the brilliant campaigning done by the young on the diversity of identity, diversity of behaviour is often overlooked. 

And so I feel for all those needing to make judgment calls at Epsom College this week. Not just housemasters and senior leaders, but teachers inevitably (rightly) drawn into discussion about it. How to give it attention, but also to allow for space, distance, even escape, that education can offer. No set is more mixed than a group discussing the grief of someone whom everyone knows. And grief is always more more complex when set against the context of introspection, judgment and fear of judgment so pervasive in teenage life.