Loss

____ is one of my regular students at work. He's one of my favorites, not just because he's about 40-50 years younger than my average clientele, but he reminds me of myself in many ways. He's a sponge for all things tech and I can cover 4-5 sessions worth of material in an hour. I can just see it clicking and his parents tell me they've never seen him so excited about any sort of class. I've only squished his mind a few times with too much information, but he always comes back with a list of questions and really pushes himself to understand. During the last session he asked how old he has to be to work for Apple. I told him he still had five years and he sank in his seat a little. I didn't want to have a job until I was...well, I still don't want to have a job really. But here he is at the age of 13 and he wants to do what I do. For lack of a better word, that's neat-o.

Well, I got an email from him earlier this week saying that he couldn't make the session because his grandfather died. I didn't really know how to respond to it, so I kept things business-as-usual and rescheduled the session and followed with "sorry for your loss." I wanted to say so much more though. I was his age when my grandfather died and it throttled my reality and my life out of whack so intensely that it wasn't until I was in college that I was able to open up about how profound it was to lose my first close family member. But it's not my place to say anything about it. I have to bite my tongue. 

Next week I'm going to hit him with the hardest lesson material I can find and give his mind a logical puzzle instead of the abstract conundrum of death.