Upbraided

This is an old-fashioned word and one I don't hear much anymore. Honestly, no one typically upbraids be but me, and I did it today. The circumstances were the same as usual: I was caught up in my own issues -- today's being finishing one class and setting up another while attempting to clean my house and purge my belongings, all while being a sweaty mess. My AC tries to keep up, but when it's this hot and humid and I'm moving around a lot, it just doesn't do what it should -- and I heard something that shook me out of my bubble. Actually I read it. I signed in to my "other institution's" email, which I rarely check when I'm not teaching classes, for the first time in over a week. I'll be teaching two freshmen classes there this fall, so I pop in every now and then to make sure I don't miss any important information.

The email I saw was less than an hour old; an incoming freshman had "died tragically". That would be sad enough, and when I first saw it, I assumed it was related to a car accident. But later, the email referred to a "senseless act", so I thought there must be more to it than that. The student's name was given (I won't repeat it here); I Googled it and found a tragic story indeed. She (the student) had graduated high school two weeks ago and been accepted to college. (This happened in West Chester, Pennsylvania, an area I know and have been to because I have family there on my father's side.) She had been shopping with her mother and grandmother, preparing for freshman orientation in a few weeks. Upon leaving the mall, she was meeting her mother and grandmother at the grandmother's house (those two were in a different car). As the young woman merged into traffic, a man in a truck was trying to merge into the same lane. When she didn't yield to him (the story was unclear about who had the right of way, not that it mattered), he shot her in the head. She died.

The death of a young person is always tragic, but when said young person is just going about her business and is killed in the process, it seems all the more tragic. I don't know this young woman (and she wasn't on my rosters; I checked) but all I can think of is the life unlived, the lost promise -- did I mention that she wanted to be an FBI agent? -- and parents who were seeing their child achieve her dream. And now it's all gone because someone thought he had been slighted, or had a greater right to the road, or who knows what. It is the saddest thing, and it makes everything I was piddling with inconsequential. It's time to pause, relax, and light a candle. My work and my mess can wait.