My freshman year progressed as normal. I remember doing a lot of punctuation worksheets and we took spelling tests of the most commonly misspelled words. Stuff like that. We moved then to short stories. I remember reading The Most Dangerous Game and the Scarlet Ibis.
When we came back from Christmas break Freshman year, we all found out that you were pregnant, and we watched you belly slowly get bigger, and we were there to be excited when you found out you were having a boy. We read Romeo and Juliet that year. I remember you'd always be to explain to us every day what certain things in the play meant. I learned a lot from that unit. After Romeo and Juliet, we read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. We read about the story of Ponyboy and Johnny and whatever all the other characters' names were. On top of that, you pushed us to become faster readers so we'd be ready for the ACT. You taught us how to read for information. I cannot tell you how thankful I am for all that pushing you did for us to become better readers, because I am a slow reader and I would have been lost on the ACT if it weren't for all that practice.
The first quarter of my sophomore year, you were on maternity leave. You had just had your son Nathan at the beginning of August. You came back from the maternity leave on October 31st and as soon as you were back, we had to begin to write the dreaded research paper. It wasn't all that bad. I got through it just fine. I didn't really like my topic as much as I thought I would. I did gay adoption. I got a C.
Second semester was mostly about reading. We had to read short stories. Ones that come to my head right away is The First Seven Years and The Lady and the Tiger. We had to write our own ending for that second story. Our novel that year was called Tuesdays with Morrie. We did this thing where everyone in our class read one chapter and we had to come up with worksheet for the chapter, and we read the chapter aloud to the class. My chapter was about family or something like that. We finished out the year by watching the movie. It had been another good year.
This year, I didn't have your class, but I had learned quite a bit from you and about you those first two years. I learned things like you liked Natalie Portman and crime shows. You once got a detention for stealing a pencil top eraser and another time because you were late for class one day. When you were in elementary school, you put a box of tissues on some kid's desk because he was sniffling too much. You had a younger brother. Your parents were divorced. Your niece asked you for an iPad for Christmas when she was six years old. Little mundane things of that sort.
Our school implemented this whole ACT prep stuff during homeroom times, and I remember going in a learning a few new things. English has always been my best subject. I remember one time these kids were skipping out on the ACT prep and you marched right down to library and asked them what they were doing. I also remember that when you said, "We'll swear next year." Something like that.
I remember seeing you at the Grand March for prom this year and you were holding your son.
Other than that, I never saw you other than passing by in the hallways. On Friday I saw you talking to one of the seniors as they turned in their research paper at the last minute, but that was all.
I was sitting in English class today and we were watching the movie Speak when there was an odd announcement.
The secretary said, "All high school teachers please report to the library."
We all thought that was strange and spent a good deal of time speculating what was going on instead of watching the movie. We saw cops out in the hallway and apparently there were police cars in front of the school. We thought that they were doing a drug search or something.
With about 20 minutes left of class Mr. Welty, my English teacher now returned. We asked him what was going on.
"There's no easy way to say this. It'll be hard on you guys," he said and was silent for a few moments before continuing, "Mrs. Kamp was in a car accident and she didn't make it."
It was at that moment that everyone's jaw dropped and their hearts fell straight to their knees. As soon as he said it was hard to explain, I knew it was because someone died, but I never would have expected it to be a teacher.
He told us that he'd be here for us and that counselors were coming from other schools that would be here to talk to us if we needed to. A priest also showed up, but I don't know how many people actually went to see him.
Mr. Welty left the room for a few minutes and I heard exclamations of, "Holy shit," and "That's so fucked up." Everyone was shocked.
Mr. Reece, the history teacher told us that some students were gathering in the library if we wanted go. All of us went. The seniors, whose last day was on Friday had all been called back to school to hear the news and they were all in the library.
Today I saw boys, even some of the toughest boys crying. I saw nearly every teacher crying and a lot of students. The school allowed us to go home if we called our parents and said it was okay. I had to call my mom at work. I broke down crying as I explained to her what had happened.
I came home and I sobbed. I don't know how long it's been since I cried as hard as I did today.
I remember my world history teacher, Mr. Pearce, told us last year about the first student he had that died at the school he used to teach at. He told us that as teachers, they all know that at some point in their career, one of their students is going to die. What about when our teachers die? That's not supposed to happen. Our teachers aren't supposed to die until after they've retired. But apparently that's not the case.
It's so unfair that this had to happen to you. You were so friendly. You always had a smile for everyone. You cared so much about your students and wanted all of them to succeed. You have a 21 month old son that is going to have to spend the rest of his life growing up without a mother now. It's so unfair.
I'll never forget you. None of us ever will. This tragedy has brought out a side in a lot of people that we never would have seen. Hundreds of people shed tears for you today and hundreds of people are going to remember you for the rest of their lives. All of us would give anything to bring you back. Next year is not going to be the same without you teaching English.
We'll try our best to move on, but this last week of school we have left, may be one of the toughest a lot of us will ever face. We hope you had a safe journey to wherever it is that you are now and that you're in a much better place.
Rest in Peace
Sarah Kamp
Sarah Kamp
April 9, 1981 - May 20, 2013
