GONE WAY TOO EARLY

I was just sent this article from the Boston Globe called The Untouchable Mean Girls, sharing the tragic story of fifteen year old Phoebe Prince, pictured here.

Phoebe had just moved from Ireland to Massachusetts. Accounts say that she was tormented by girls at her new school for being different and also getting the attention of a senior football player, who asked her to a big dance. Two days before that dance, Phoebe was taunted on her walk home from school by girls who road in a car next to her, throwing things at her and calling her unthinkably cruel names. When she finally reached her house that day, she went up to her room and hung herself in her closet, and her lifeless body was found by her twelve year old sister. Online memorials were set up for Phoebe, but those girls who had ruined the last weeks of her life were determined to not let her memory be honored in peace. Her parents decided to bury Phoebe in Ireland, far away from where these girls could damage her soul anymore.

I know that there are a lot of us who understand all too well what Phoebe must have felt at that school. We are silent soldiers, roaming the halls looking for a way out or a way to be accepted for who we are. Even though it doesn't feel like it, for every mean girl out there, there are at least five of us, trying to get through life, day by day.

Link for the Boston Globe Article: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/01/24/the_untouchable_mean_girls/?s_campaign=8315