Meeting Persephone

Today was the day that Mini Me "died". She surprised herself by being so freaked out by the process and was also more than a bit angry at those who didn't take the whole thing seriously (which sounds like a large number of the high school). Of course the whole thing is taking place during school wide required testing making the "death" episode even more stressful.

Mini Me's death was announced at 1:35 at which time she dropped everything that she was holding - out of shock, not a required reaction. The "Grim Reaper" and assistants escorted her from her classroom and took her to a room where her face was painted white and she donned a black t-shirt bearing the words "Living Dead" in dripping text to lend a spooky quality to the exercise. She then returned to her classroom after being reminded to be completely silent for the rest of the day. Eventually her trembling subsided and she managed to go through the last part of the day without breaking her silence beyond a small laugh at a friend.

One of her young friends from the junior high school heard that Mini Me had "died" and began to panic. She finally saw Mini Me later that afternoon, gave her a huge hug exclaiming that she'd thought she had really died and then started crying. There were a few instances where the exercise impacted students but largely it was made into a joke - as I'd feared and warned Mini Me about (at least she was prepared even if it didn't ease her annoyance). It does make me thankful that I didn't write a deeply personal obituary for this pseudo death though...

The intention was that she would come home and remain silent for the whole night but that will not happen in our house. She did minimal texting (and didn't really speak to her boyfriend at all having already warned him that she wouldn't) but had to tell us about everything that happened and sharing her disappointment in the response of her classmates.

Tomorrow she will be required to wear the shirt again and there will be an assembly at the school where she will read a letter to those she's "left behind" from a different room. The voices of the "living dead" will be piped into the gymnasium. Apparently the parents are supposed to receive the letters after the assembly. I'm dreading that nearly as much as I did writing the obituary....

At any rate Mini Me has made it through this trial. Now her biggest concern is the end of year testing and the friends who are graduating and won't be at school after next week. She's a bit heartbroken about that.

The years are flying by. My baby's growing up so quickly. Maybe I should have stacked those bricks on her head when she was small like I was advised to do!