Planet Mad

On Monday my Housemistress' husband died unexpectedly. He was a colleague: he taught history, coached games and used to be a Housemaster. His death stunned the school community, not least the girls in the House. Since then I've been running the House with support from colleagues: it's been made even more stressful by the proximity of the end of term and the associated report deadlines. The last five days have been horrible; no other word can describe the situation. I am very appreciative of all the supportive emails and messages - it's been hard going, not least because of the need to hide my emotions and to be strong for the girls' sake.

People's response to death is a bizarre thing: I was totally numb, calm and collected when I first heard; I cried when we had to tell the girls and then in the chapel service; I went through a phase of total, all-consuming anger. The girls have responded in very different ways and at different times, but we've talked and cried and hugged and laughed together a lot, and in a perverse way I think this has brought the community together. Jen the matron and I have had girls round to our flats at all hours of the day and night: we've all discovered so much more about each other than we knew before; we've probably learned something about ourselves too.

I was unable to think for the first twenty four hours. The only sentences I managed to write were straight from the "Here is John. He has a ball. He likes to run" school of simplicity, although they made less sense. I knew that blogging would be a bad idea, for although I write primarily for myself and I may have emotionally benefitted from writing my way through the raw pain of the situation, I know enough about discretion and corporate loyalty to recognise a bad idea when I think it.

We have six days of term left to go. There are forms to fill, lists to compile and print, reports to write. The final few days of term will be full of tidying, sorting, packing, leaving. In seven days' time I will be in Italy on a school trip. It's going to be busy and blog updates will be few and far between. Until we meet again...